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Sports

Cardinals Begin New Year With A Loss

VanBuckley's 15 points not enough in blowout road loss.

Although the calendar has turned to 2011, the boy's basketball team of Prospect Heights Campus has yet to figure out a way to put together a string of victories.  On Tuesday, the Cardinals played their first game of the new calendar year and suffered a blowout loss at Tilden Educational Campus.

Prospect Heights defeated the Blue Devils in their season opener 72 to 68 but the second meeting of the season between the two teams proved to be not much of a contest.  Tilden (3-5) pounced on the Cardinals early as they jumped out to a 12 to two first quarter lead and never looked back.

Despite a turnover filled opening quarter the Cardinals trailed by nine points heading into the second quarter.  Prospect Heights would cut their deficit to six points in the quarter.  However, after trailing 22 to 16 with just over six minutes to play before halftime Prospect Heights lost any momentum they had. 

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The Blue Devils responded and closed out the first half with a 15-4 run to put Prospect Heights (2-6) in 17-point hole.

"In the first and second quarters we were struggling offensively but had some unforced turnovers. Tilden played excellent and they played a hell of a game today," said Cardinals head coach Phyllip Jones.

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Jones' team was not able to put anything together after halftime as Tilden increased their lead to as much as 30 points before sending Prospect Heights to a 70 to 47 defeat.  Eze VanBuckley did his best to spark his team with 15 points but it was not enough for their third victory of the season. The Cardinals loss was their sixth of the season and their chances of making the playoffs are slim.  Prospect Heights must win six of their final seven regular season games in order to finish 7-7 and qualify for the post-season.

Although the odds are against them with their next three games against the top three teams in the division the team is not giving up hope just yet. 

"My thing is just getting better every time.  We have more games and we live to fight another day," said Jones.  "It is upsetting to see that we are making the same mistakes but our job as coaches is to encourage these young men so we can keep our heads up high and finish the season."

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