Boys Basketball: St. Joseph routs Hales

• Reprints

Updated: March 10, 2012 8:20AM

It has been a rough year for Hales and it didn’t get any better Friday night as it suffered a 65-45 loss at home to St. Joseph.

The Spartans kept things close in the first half and St. Joseph could only manage a 30-25 lead at the break, but halftime was all Charger’s coach Gene Pingatore needed as they took control of the game in the second half.

St. Joseph increased the lead to 45-33 by the end of the third quarter. The lead had been as much as 15 points midway through the quarter.

In the fourth quarter Reggie Johnson started it off with a 15-foot jumper and ended a 10-3 run with an offense rebound for a layup that allowed St. Joseph to build a 55-36 lead with 4:01 remaining in the fourth quarter.

Johnson and teammate Paul Turner shared scoring honors as they both registered 21 points. Karrien Simmons was the other player in double figures with 10 points.

“For us to be successful we have to play smarter basketball,” said Pingatore. “We do a lot of good things then we put ourselves in trouble with a lot of careless mistakes. Basketball is about making good decisions.”

Hales was led in scoring by Eddie Alcantera (14 points, 11 rebounds) and Niji Lomax (10 points).

“It has been a very tough year,” Hales coach Gary London said. “We have a lot of inexperience, but we played 17 games and we have to do a better job. We had some opportunities that we took advantage of in the first half, but we lost our composure in the second half.”