EDWARDSVILLE - Although Edwardsville senior forward Shaun Pacatte didn't score in the Tigers' 51-36 loss to O'Fallon on Jan. 28 in a Southwestern Conference boys basketball game at Lucco-Jackson Gym, he provided help on the boards and with his ballhandling. Pacatte did feel the Tigers kept playing hard and had a good comeback against the athletic and talented Panthers.

Shaun PacatteEdwardsville showed a lot of moxie and fight in the game, diving after loose balls and sticking with their plan during the game, but in the end, O'Fallon was able to take advantage of mistakes to pull away for the win. And the team got a big spark from their bench, mounting a fourth-quarter comeback that made things interesting.

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"I think the guys off the bench did really well," Pacatte said during a postgame interview, "forced a lot of turnovers, brought a lot of energy we didn't have at the time. We had a good start to the game, second quarter, a little rough stretch. It seemed like every turnover we had was just an easy two points and those piled on quick and we got in a pretty big hole."

The Panthers went on runs of 9-0, 7-0 and 8-0 at the start of the final three quarters that eventually helped to decide the outcome. The Tigers kept on playing hard and hung in there.

"Yeah, I thought when the bench came in, I think it was early in the fourth quarter," Pacatte said, "we got a couple of threes, we hadn't gotten too many shots up and turning the ball over a lot. We got good energy, turned them over a couple of times at half-court. They got it pretty close at the end of the game."

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It was a big spark off the bench, as Alec Marchetto drained a pair of threes, while Malik Allen and Zach Hoffmann also connected on three balls that helped the Edwardsville pull to within 48-36 late. O'Fallon scored the last three points of the game to take the win.

"I thought we came out to a good start," Pacatte said about an opening quarter that the Tigers led 10-9, "hit a couple of shots. But you make a couple of turnovers, they're a good, athletic team, those are automatic two points, and found ourselves in a big hole. It's pretty tough to dig out of it."

The Tigers kept striving, and efforts like that will serve the team well as the calendar turns into February, the stretch run of the regular season, and the onset of the IHSA Class 4A playoffs. But the turnovers.

"You never want turnovers," Pacatte said. "But I think there's a difference between aggressive turnovers and, I don't want to say lazy, but just unnecessary, unforced turnovers and we had a couple of those at half-court that run out to some lay-ups. I don't want to say those are easy fixes, but those are really big, couple of six-point swings, we turned it over, we could have gotten a shot, back-and-forth and we could have made it a lot closer earlier on."

There is still plenty for Edwardsville to look ahead to, and it starts Monday with a visit from Madison. followed by a make-up game from earlier this season at home against Bishop DuBourg Catholic of south St. Louis City, then a Southwestern Conference game against Belleville East next Friday. Pacatte is glad to have those three games coming up in the week ahead.

"It's good," Pacatte said. "We play three games of basketball next week and it's really good we don't have to sit around and wait if we have the opportunity. Three games, we just have to show it."

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