Gaels Win First Non-Home Game over Boise State
By Simon Tryzna
Beau Levesque and the rest of the Gael faithful will be smiling about the 8-0 start (courtesy of Andrew Nguyen).
In their first road game of the year, the Saint Mary’s Gaels grinded out a win against a great Boise State team that hasn’t lost a non-conference home game since 2010, taking down the host Broncos 82-74.
Stephen Holt made 16 of the Gaels first 19 points, as his layup gave Saint Mary’s an early 19-13 lead. They would push that lead up to 36-20 with 8:18 to play before Boise State came back to cut the lead down to 2 at half time, primarily on the back of Jeff Elorriaga who was killing it with the long ball.
The second half went a lot like the first, with each team going on a run. Anthony Drmic hit a layup with 1:46 left to bring Boise State within one at 70-69, but could not convert the ensuing and-one layup. Following a Saint Mary’s time out, Beau Levesque hit the dagger three to give the Gaels a four point cushion that they saw out with great defense and clutch foul shooting.
Non-AP Style Summary / Big Picture / Fan Reaction: Huge win. Possible rankings on Monday. Definite eye-opener to WCC teams that the Gaels have more guys than just Waldow. He got off to a slow start, but made an impact when Boise State stopped doubling him. Kerry Carter is fantastic coming off the bench, and I thought Hodgson (despite the Technical foul) played well as did Jackson. Having a solid 8 man rotation is great and the depth really benefited Saint Mary’s. With the possibility of facing the Broncos in Hawaii a week from Monday and an ensuing return game in Moraga, this could be a sweet rivalry in the making. The game certainly got chippy in time and a rematch should on neutral court should be fascinating.