Faith Academy boys basketball loses to Austin Regents

CAPTION: Faith Academy junior guard Asher Apel is one Flame the program is counting on to provide consistent scoring. Photo by Jennifer Fierro/TexasChalkTalk.com

The Faith Academy of Marble Falls boys basketball team lost to Austin Regents 65-49 Dec. 5.

The Flames (5-5) trailed for most of the contest. At one point, the deficit was 20, but Faith cut it to 11.

To give his team a chance, Faith head coach Zakk Revelle subbed frequently late in the fourth quarter, alternating between an offensive shooter and a defensive specialist. He noted some of his players hadn’t experienced that before. But coaches may have do it again as the season continues.

“Now we can say we’ve done this before,” he said. “We did it against China Spring (at the Lorena Tournament last week). I thought our guys played hard. You can’t turn the ball over that much and expect to win the game.”

When asked how many turnovers his team committed, Revelle, who didn’t have his stat sheet in front of him, said, “A lot in the first half.”

“In the second half, we played much better,” he said. “We had a 12-point deficit at the half. That was unfortunate. We’re a young team. Sometimes they’re going to show flashes and sometimes they’re going to show youth. (Against Regents), we showed youth.”

Revelle noted that he and Regents head coach Sam Burmeister, who are great friends, had been trying to schedule a contest for quite some time. The two faced each other during the fall league hosted by Austin St. Michael’s earlier this semester and believed both squads would greatly benefit by playing each other during the regular season.

Regents reached the regional finals of the Texas Association of Private and Parochial Schools last season.

“We knew they were going to be really good, and they were going to come ready to go,” Revelle said. “It was a really exciting game.”

The Knights put massive pressure on Faith’s perimeter players in an effort to force turnovers.

“We turned it over too much,” Revelle said. “Their guards had really quick hands. They did a great job of taking away our options.”

One was keeping freshman guard Will Slyker in check after seeing the Flame during the fall league.

The Flames will have road games on back-to-back days Friday and Saturday, Dec. 8-9. They will play at Dallas Lutheran at 7:30 p.m. Friday and at Yavneh Academy, ranked No. 6 in the latest private school Class 2A poll of the Texas Association of Basketball Coaches, at 7:30 p.m. Saturday. Faith is ranked No. 8 in the poll.

“Lutheran will pose different things and defenses,” the coach said. “Yavneh will run their 2-3 zone and they shoot well. We’ll have our hands full.”

By the end of the Vavneh contest, Faith will have played eight games in 10 days.

“December tends to be the hardest month,” Revelle said. “There are no give-me (games). Part of it was purposeful. We have a young team, and they need game reps together. You really want to be playing as many as possible. By the time we roll into January, we want to be moving in that direction.”

Watch videos on Highland Lakes sports by going to Fierro’s YouTube channel and searching for The Broad Podcaster. Please like, subscribe and share.