Shorewood boys start out 0-3

SHORELINE — This isn’t where the highly-touted Shorewood boys basketball team imagined it would be two weeks into the season. Not by a long shot.

Mariner dealt the Thunderbirds their third loss in as many games Tuesday night at Shorewood High School, escaping with a 37-36 Western Conference 4A South Division victory on Tommy Craddock’s putback at the buzzer.

Shorewood (0-2 league, 0-3 overall) broke a 19-all halftime tie with a 10-0 run to start the second half and took a 34-23 lead into the fourth quarter.

But Mariner’s zone defense kept Shorewood out of the paint in the fourth quarter and limited the T-birds to three field goal attempts.

“They did a great job in the fourth quarter stopping us,” Shorewood coach Jeff Denny said. “We obviously didn’t take care of the ball. We turned the ball over too many times.

“We tried to force things and we had a few turnovers and they climbed right back into it. We should have slowed it down and taken more time off the clock.”

Rob Diederichs supplied Shorewood’s only fourth-quarter basket with three minutes remaining. A minute later, the Marauders shrunk their deficit to 36-34 on Jerod Grant’s 3-point play.

Craddock had a chance to tie the game with 31 seconds to go, but only made the first of two free throws. Shorewood cleared the rebound, but turned the ball over on the way down court.

Mariner used a pair of timeouts to draw up its final play. And when Aaron Cartwright drove to the hoop and missed his jumper in the lane, Craddock was in perfect position to clean up his teammate’s miss as the final seconds ticked off.

Diederichs scored a game-high 21 points and Sean Tracey added seven for the T-birds, who committed a season-high 21 turnovers.

“We had a letdown in the fourth quarter with our turnovers,” Denny said. That’s not something that should happen with a bunch of guys that are this experienced.”

Turnovers have been a problem for Shorewood in all three of its losses.

“One thing that’s been consistent is us not taking care of the ball,” Denny said. “We have to have better guard play.”

Up next, the T-birds play at Meadowdale tonight and face Kingco power Garfield Dec. 27 at KeyArena.

“It’s not time to panic,” Denny said. “We knew before the season that our first five (games) were very tough. We knew coming in it would be a tough start.”