Baylor's Red Raiders rout home schoolers

By Gene Henley

Friday, January 1, 1904

photo The Best of Preps logo.

BAYLOR 61, CHATTANOOGA PATRIOTS 20Baylor 13 19 18 11 -- 61Patriots 11 2 1 6 -- 20Baylor (61) -- Clay Born 22, Matt Clendenen 10, Maum 4, Upshaw 3, Lupas 9, Bowens 3, Linehart 5, Seaberg 5, Kelly.Patriots (20) -- Fears 2, Ambrosetti 5, Jones 3, Truax 6, C. Howard, Birkhead 2, Porter 2, T. Murphy, J. Murphy, Kindiger, M. Howard.3-point goals: Baylor 10 (Born 6, Clendenen 2, Maum, Linehart); Patriots 3 (Ambrosetti, Jones, Truax). Other highlights: Clendenden 6 r, 4 a; Bowens 4 a (B); John Truax 6 r; Donovan Jones 4 a (CP). Records: Baylor 6-2; Patriots 6-8.

Baylor boys' basketball coach Austin Clark admits that his staff doesn't do much scouting - that their Red Raiders have to control themselves and "execute what we do." Thursday night in the Times Free Press Best of Preps tournament, they were pretty much in control throughout.

Clay Born outscored the opponents by himself with 22 points, and the Raiders defense was on display as they defeated the Chattanooga Patriots 61-20 to advance to today's semifinals. Baylor will face Notre Dame at 5:30 p.m. at Chattanooga State.

Baylor held the home-school team without a field goal for 22 minutes and 18 seconds of game time -- nearly the equivalent of three quarters -- while limiting the Patriots to three free throws in that 49-3 span. The Patriots led 11-8 after a 3-pointer by Aaron Ambrosetti with 2:47 left in the first quarter, but their next basket wasn't until Nick Birkhead made a layup with 4:29 remaining in the game.

Offensively, the Red Raiders weren't as crisp as Clark prefers, but he felt they made up for it on the defensive end.

"We didn't execute very well," Clark said. "Defensively, I thought we played pretty solid, but offensively against their man, we didn't execute. Fortunately, Clay was hitting and that opened up the zone.

"They had some good players, but we were able to zero in on them a little bit."

Matt Clendenen added 10 points for the Raiders (6-2), who in addition to injured star Reggie Upshaw played without Amedeo Giussani. He went back to Switzerland for the holidays.

John Truax led the Patriots (6-8) with six points.