Pistone hurt in YC win

Disaster struck the Yuma Catholic boys basketball early on Monday night.

Midway through the second quarter, sophomore post Matt Pistone came down on an already injured right ankle and was done for the night.

No worries.

Junior post Grady Bourguignon and senior post Jaysn Reid picked up the slack, and the Shamrocks survived with a 63-39 win over Parker at home.

“They're going to have to have big nights now that Matt's out because there's no backups for them now,” Yuma Catholic coach Brooks Neumann said about the depth of its posts. “We're going to be thin at that spot.”

Bourguignon had 15 points and five rebounds off the bench, and Reid recorded a double-double with 14 points and 11 rebounds in the win. Sophomore point guard Carter Rodriguez did a little bit of everything for the Shamrocks, scoring nine points with nine assists, five rebounds and five steals.

“I had to do a lot more work out there,” Reid said about Pistone getting hurt. “When he went down, it's like, all right I got to step it up now because he usually gets all the rebounds.”

The No. 11 Shamrocks (9-1) used a 12-0 run to start the second quarter to boost their early lead to 26-7 but less than a minute later, Pistone went up to block a shot and came up lame. Pistone, who averages more than 13 points and nearly nine rebounds a game for the Shamrocks, injured the same ankle in their 43-27 win against Lake Havasu on Jan. 4. According to coaches, Pistone is most likely going to miss at least a week, including today at Gila Bend.

“It's a big loss to our team, but we have guys on our bench that can pick up his slack,” Rodriguez said.

“He's one of the best players in the city, so anytime you lose a star like that, obviously the other guys can pick up the slack but I don't know if they can pick it up that much because he's our leading scorer and leading rebounder,” Neumann said. “So take him out of the line and let me tell you, it's not good.”

Yuma Catholic's offense became stagnate in the moments after Pistone rolled his ankle with 3:32 left in the second quarter. Three minutes into the third quarter, Parker had cut the Shamrocks' lead to 29-24.

“I wasn't really worried, but it was bothering me they were coming back,” Reid said. “I knew we'd be all right because we're usually good out of the half.”

“We got sloppy there and got a little impatient and I thought we're a better team than they are and so if we regain our composure — I never thought we were going to lose, I just thought we needed to go on a little run,” Neumann said.

The Shamrocks responded with a 9-0 run — six points from Bourguignon and three points from Reid — and led by double-digits the rest of the way. For Bourguignon, the six points were just a part of the 13 he scored in the second half.

“I thought he played a great second half,” Neumann said. “I think if anybody played good in the second half, it was him.”