Hungry Dogs Run Faster........Hopefully

Have the wheels officially fallen off? After a devastating loss last week against Coffee Us Up, the Fighting Cantaloupe came out seemingly flat as they suffered a second consecutive loss last night losing to We Never Practice by a score of 66-60. With Pondo being ruled out prior to game time as he enters concussion protocol this week, Coach O’Neill had to make some moves heading into another tough matchup. After providing a huge offensive spark off the bench the past few weeks, O'Neill made the call to bump Lou into the starting lineup. The move paid off as Lou exploded for 22 points while mixing in 2 assists, 3 boards and a steal as he was one of the few sources of offense for the Cantaloupe in this one.

Ryan Welsh despite 6 turnovers and a 1/7 performance from beyond the arc was the team’s next leading scorer finishing with 16 pts, 2 assists and a team high 7 rebounds followed by fellow Welsh bro Nick who dropped a 15, 5, and 3 line of his own. After that, Kevin was the only player to exceed 4 points as he finished with 9 pts, 3 boards and 3 steals. After a tightly contested back and forth first half, the Cantaloupe entered the second half down 6. O’Neill, becoming known for his late game adjustments made the switch to man defense to open the second half after allowing too many easy buckets with a zone in the first. Despite turnovers plaguing the ‘Loupe all night, down 12 with about 8 mins left they got hot pulling the game to within 3. Fresh out of a timeout and less than a minute on the clock, the Cantaloupe came down the court with a chance to tie and send this one to OT but in shades of week 5, a miscommunication on a late possession resulted in a turnover that would ultimately seal the deal in this one.

Our reporter on the scene caught up Lou after the game and when asked how he felt about his scoring outburst despite the loss, he was quick to note that “It’s a team game.” His individual stats didn’t matter without the win. When we interviewed Coach O’Neill at his post-game press conference the frustration was visible. He felt the team didn’t come into this one with the edge he’d hoped for after coming off their first loss but feels they still have a team capable of winning it all. Now tied with We Never Practice for third place in the standings, with records sitting at 4-2, the Fighting Cantaloupe are put in a position where they’ll be viewed as the underdogs heading into the playoffs but O’Neill says “that’s exactly what we want.” Hopefully this underdog mentality sets in quick as the Fighting Cantaloupe will be just that as they take on the 2 seeded defending champion Team TBD next week. The Week 7 matchup is scheduled for Monday August 9th @ 8:30pm. Team TBD heads into this one with a record of 5-1 averaging just over 63 ppg.

Written by Jonathan Abbott

August 4th, 2021