Pinellas

Boys basketball: Parks, SPC catch fire late to down CCC

By Corey Long
Published January 12, 2008

CLEARWATER - Tracy Parks scored 10 of his 25 points in the fourth quarter to help St. Petersburg Catholic pull away from Clearwater Central Catholic 66-55 on Friday.

Before the Barons (11-6, 4-1) took control, the game was a back-and-forth affair with neither team enjoying more than a seven-point lead.

"This was obviously a big win for the seniors in the program," SPC coach Mike Moran said. "They had never lost in this building and with this being one of our main rivals, it was something they wanted to finish."

The Barons used an 11-0 run to turn an early 10-4 deficit into a 15-10 lead by the end of the first quarter. CCC's Eric Segert scored 14 of his game-high 32 points in the second quarter to help the Marauders (7-8, 1-3) take a 32-31 lead at the half.

Segert and center Paul Freedman (17 points) kept CCC in the game each time the Barons tried to pull away, but Moran made a few defensive adjustments at the start of the fourth quarter to change the flow of the game.

"Segert is an amazing scorer and we had to go to more of a zone and put our best defenders on him," Moran said. "Daniel Porter, Nick Hess and Anthony Miles deserve the credit on defense."

But Parks had the hot hand when needed most. After a Freedman putback pulled the Marauders to 61-53, Parks sank a 3-pointer with under two minutes remaining to close the door on any comeback.

[Last modified January 11, 2008, 22:55:40]