Bayless Takes 2nd At Southside Classic After Loss To SLUH

MEHLVILLE – Mama said there’d be days like this.

And unfortunately for the Bayless High boys basketball team, one of those days came in the Southside Classic championship game, Friday night against SLUH, when the Bronchos couldn’t do hardly anything right, and lost the game 68-41.

“I tell you, some days you’re the windshield, and some days you’re the bug,” Bayless head basketball coach Pat Triplett said. “Today, we were that bug, and we got smashed.”

Boy did they ever.

Bayless, the tournament’s No. 1 seed after winning the event for the first time ever last year, had one of its worst performances ever, in what proved to be a 27-point loss to the Jr. Billikens.

The Bronchos shot poorly, and passed poorly, and had nearly everything go wrong that could, including not scoring for the first six minutes of the game, only scoring one basket in the entire first quarter, and falling behind by more than 20 points by halftime.

“What you saw tonight, was a good team of seniors beat up on a good team of sophomores,” Triplett said. “SLUH’s got a real good team and they took advantage of some things on us tonight.”

What they mostly took advantage of was Bayless’ mistakes.

The Bronchos couldn’t get into their sets, and had a number of bad turnovers in the first half.

SLUH was able to capitalize on those mistakes for a 10-0 run to start the second quarter, that gave the Jr. Bills a 19-3 lead.

Then after a three-pointer by Bayless’ Patrick Triplett Jr., ended that run, SLUH began another one, and closed the half on a 13-5 run that left the Bronchos a bit dazed and confused.

“It was some crazy stuff happening out there,” Triplett said. “The kind of stuff that makes a kid that normally only takes three or four shots, decide to take 10 shots when our best scorer has only had one. But we’re a young team, we’ll learn from this.”

Bayless was able to put together one flurry at the start of the fourth quarter, when junior Edin Husic made two layups and a deep three-pointer, and sophomore Excell Harris added a spectacular spinning layup for nine straight points that forced SLUH to call timeout.

Unfortunately, the Bronchos were still behind by 18 points when that occurred and there just wasn’t enough time left to rally back completely.

Husic and sophomore Muhamed Poljo led the Bronchos with nine points apiece, while Harris and Triplett added seven points each.

Bayless’ top scorer Edin Mehmedovic had a frustrating night, and didn’t score at all against the Jr. Bills.

In fact, Mehmedovic’s frustration with SLUH’s physical defense boiled over late in the third quarter, when he was hit with two technical fouls that forced his ejection from the game.

“They were banging on the big boy a little bit,” Triplett said. “And he just lost his cool a little bit. Young players make those mistakes sometimes. But he’ll learn from it. I hope we’ll all learn from it.”

To compound the problem, MSHSAA rules state that when a player is ejected from a game for getting two technical fouls, that player is also disqualified from playing in his team’s next game as well.

That means Mehmedovic will also have to miss this Friday’s Bronchos’ home opener against Bishop DuBourg High.

Bayless is set to take on the Cavaliers at 6:30 p.m., Friday night, but will have to do so with one less player than usual.

Mehmedovic will be eligible to return for the Bronchos’ December 12 road game against McCluer South-Berkeley.