Cardinals Drop Third Straight

The Prospect Heights Campus boy's basketball team has yet to put a complete game together this season, and Tuesday night was no exception.

The Cardinals lost their third consecutive game 67 to 45 at the hands of Bedford Academy.

The Cardinals were hurt by turnovers once again in a sloppy first half and trailed by 24 points at halftime.

"We have to play hard. We are not going to get a good seed in the playoffs if we don't play hard, " said team captain Eze VanBuckley.

"Everybody wants to win a championship but we are not playing championship level games. "

Van Buckley, who has never lost three games in a row during his career at Prospect Heights, says the losing streak bothers him and the team.

The senior believes that it is his job as the captain to get his team ready to play from the opening tip.

"There was a big difference in intensity," said head coach Phyllip Jones. "I think Bedford definitely played a lot harder than we did. They played together and they played smarter."

Although Prospect Heights looked very sluggish in the first half, the team lead by VanBuckley and junior combo guard Kamal Nelson were much more efficient on offense in the second half. Nelson scored 15 of his team-high 19 points in the second half and VanBuckley scored 10 of his 18 points after halftime. However, no other Cardinals players scored in double figures and turnovers prevented them from getting back into the game.

The Cardinals cut it to 19 in the third quarter but were never able to get closer as they lost their second straight game at home.

The team will now have a week of rest before they play their next league game against Brooklyn Technical High School. Prospect Height's head coach is hoping that the time off will give the team the opportunity to work on their game.

"The biggest thing I like about this game is that we have a lot of days off until our next league game," Jones said. "We play a non-league game on Saturday against Kingsborough but we can use to this time to work on a lot of things that we need to work on."

Most importantly, the Cardinals currently want to work on playing with intensity for the entire game, he said.