Perryville Pirates’ shooting woes lead to 70-59 loss to Valle Catholic

The Perryville Pirates boys basketball team fell to Valle Catholic 70-59 on Tuesday, Dec. 10 in Perryville.

“I thought we played terrible,” first-year Perryville head coach Chris Hahn said. “We didn’t attack on offense. Overall, I just thought we played soft.”

Waylon Huber got the Pirates on the board with a 3-point basket. They maintained an 18-9 first-quarter lead with five points coming from Huber.

The Warriors charged back and went on a 20-6 second-quarter run to take a 29-24 lead with two minutes left in the first half. Hann said a breakdown in the Pirates’ defensive press led them giving up the lead and control of the game altogether.

“It all goes back to our effort,” Hahn said. “We just did not show up today.”

Valle Catholic went into halftime leading 35-29 after the Pirates stopped the bleeding a bit in the final two minutes of the second quarter.

Valle Catholic scored 20 more points in the third quarter to pull further ahead of Perryville with a 55-41 lead.

The Pirates tried to come back with a flurry of 3-pointers but, for the most part, the shots weren’t falling. Of their many attempts from beyond the arc, only five went in. Two of which came from Eli Schott, which accounted for all of his six points.

“I think we just didn’t attack,” Hahn said. “So we ended up playing soft and settling a lot of times and just jacked up a lot of 3s.”

The Warriors didn’t make many 3-pointers, but did much of their damage on the charity stripe, making 19 of 31 free throws. Senior Colin Henderson led Valle Catholic with 18 points, including a perfect 7 of 7 from the free-throw line.

“We really want to try to get to the basket and create pressure on the defense and try to get some free throw tests,” Hahn said. “We struggled at it tonight.”

The Pirates kept pace with the Warriors with a 18-15 fourth quarter, but it was too little, too late by then.

Senior Evan Hayden scored six points in the final period to lead the Pirates with 15 total points. Fellow senior Karston Schili added 12 points.

The Pirates are 2-2 to start Hahn’s first year at Perryville. His coaching career began at Perryville years ago when he coached the freshman team.

After coaching the Pirates last year, athletic director Justin Dreyer contacted Hahn about coming back and building up the program, which has not seen a winning season since 2019.

“I had a really good experience my first time here, so it was comfortable. I knew some people here, so I felt like I’d give it a shot,” Hahn said, “maybe try to build a program because I know they’ve struggled for quite some time.”

Hahn was previously an assistant coach on the Crowley’s Ridge women’s basketball team last year and the Greenville girls varsity coach two years prior. He is more known in the Southeast Missouri area for leading the Delta boys basketball team to a 42-17 record and two district titles through 2019-20.

Perryville will host Fredericktown on Friday, Dec. 13, its last home game until Feb. 1. Hahn said one of the first steps in turning the program around, similar to the process the football and baseball team went through, is “having a competitor’s mindset.”

“That’s the hardest thing,” Hahn said. “That usually happens whenever you have had successful teams in a few years.”