From Thursday, Dec. 7 to Saturday, Dec. 9, Jesuit High School Sacramento hosted the 49th Annual Fr. Barry Classic Basketball Tournament. Jesuit welcomed seven other teams, coming from as far as Houston, Texas. In the end, Archbishop Mitty High School won the tournament, beating Brophy College Preparatory 54-52 in overtime.

Jesuit had an opportunity to win its first game on Thursday, Dec. 7 against St. Mary’s High School, but a series of missed shots and defensive lapses in the final two minutes resulted in a 63-56 loss for the Marauders. Jesuit’s next game on Friday, Dec. 8 was equally close, resulting in another loss, this time to Bellarmine College Preparatory with a final score of 41-39. Finally, on Saturday, Dec. 9 Jesuit won against Loyola High School. The game had a final score of 64-71, and Jesuit finished seventh place in the tournament.

In Jesuit’s bout against Loyola, maintaining their fundamental skills and procedures was crucial to success. 

“The key thing that helped us get the win over Loyola was just sticking to the process,” said guard Justin Zara ’24. “After two games that didn’t go the way we expected, we knew we had to come out of the tournament with a win. We didn’t let the past two losses affect the way we played and it showed with a win against Loyola.”

Jesuit came out focused against Loyola, scoring 71 points to secure their first win and their highest point total of the tournament.

“We were able to pull out a win against Loyola because we did a better job of putting the ball in the hoop,” said Head Coach Timothy Kelly. “[It] sounds simple, but we had a hard time scoring in the first two rounds of the tournament.” 

Despite Jesuit’s victory, their defensive communication was lacking. Remediating this flaw could provide major benefits to the team as a whole.

“One of the things we are working on in practice, and in games, is communicating on the defensive end,” said forward Cole Epperson ’24. “I think by doing this we will end up causing more stops, and then scoring on offense. On the other hand, I think we’ve improved in a lot of areas, one being crashing the board and grabbing those rebounds.”

Now that the Fr. Barry Tournament is over, Jesuit looks ahead to their upcoming game at Granite Bay High School on Wednesday, Dec. 20. The team is eager to bounce back from a tough tournament.

“Fr. Barry didn’t go as we wanted it to, so we’re really determined to go out there and win,” Cole said.