Cantaloupe Punch Their Ticket

The Fighting Cantaloupe wrapped up the regular season on a high note Wednesday night, locking up the #3 seed and knocking the Balboas out of playoff contention after gutting out a gritty 42-27 victory. Despite being slightly outsized, the Cantaloupe defense smothered the Balboas all night, holding them under 20 in the first half. Credit to the Balboas though as they didn’t make life easy for the Cantaloupe either, Ryan Welsh being the only player to finish with double digit points and 42 being the teams lowest total of the season. Nick Welsh who did not attempt a shot from inside the arc was the team’s next leading scorer with 9 including a couple of huge shots to help pull away in the second half. The only other notable from the game was Torney who was battling in the trenches all night. Andrew dominated the boards contesting every rebound hauling in a team high 7 boards while adding in a couple of steals to go with.

Playoff seedings now locked in, the three-seeded Cantaloupe are set to take on Win or Booze in the first-round. For those that don’t recall, Win or Booze handed the Cantaloupe their first loss of the season back in week 4. The short-staffed Cantaloupe lost the first matchup 55-47 and it’s looking like they’ll be down a man again this time with Lou already being ruled out. Outside of a huge game from Nick Welsh who dropped 25 the last time these two matched up, Win or Booze essentially shut down the Cantaloupe offense, limiting every other member of the team to 6 or fewer. We caught up with Coach O’Neill this week to see how his game-plan has adjusted since then:

“The game-plan itself hasn’t changed much" O'Neill explained, "I believe we’re a much better team than we were the last time they saw us; our ball movement has improved dramatically and that has gone a long way with getting more guys involved on offense. If we keep moving the ball and hitting big shots the way we did these last couple weeks, I like our chances against anyone.”

The Cantaloupe will put that theory to the test tomorrow night @ 7:30 pm in front of a packed Fruit Basket as they look to keep their Championship hopes alive. We’ll see you there Cantaloupe fans.

Written by: Jonathan Abbott

November 21st, 2021