Xavier impressive in season-opening romp

CEDAR RAPIDS - They all repeated the mantra about it being one game at a time. But this first game, ooey, it was a beauty.

The Cedar Rapids Xavier Saints played name the score against a young Mount Pleasant team, rolling to a 66-24 season-opening win Monday night at Ron Thillen Gymnnasium.

This team has high goals, as it should. Xavier lost to eventual champ Dubuque Wahlert in a tight Class 3A substate final last season, returns a Division I signee in wing Adam McDermott (North Dakota), a D-II guy in forward Calvin Winker (Missouri Southern) and adds a dynamic point guard in senior Cedar Rapids Prairie transfer Michael Mims.

The Saints don't have a ton of size, but that's nitpicking.

'We're going to take it one game at a time, but, obviously, we know what the expecations are,” said Winker. 'Coming up one game short last year, by six or seven points, we want to get to Wells Fargo Arena ... That Wahlert game, that's always in our head.”

Xavier slapped full-court pressure defense on a Mount Pleasant team with four freshmen, and it was all over. The Saints had a 27-7 lead after a quarter, with turnover after turnover leading to point after point.

The 27 first-quarter points were three more than Mount Pleasant ended up with the entire night.

'Just real happy with the focus and intensity that the guys came out with,” said Coach Ryan Luehrsmann. 'I thought we did a really good job, obviously, on the defensive end, taking them out of their stuff, which led to some easy baskets in transition. That's essentially the way we want to play. We want our defense leading to our offense.”

McDermott made 8 of 12 shots from the field for a game-high 20 points. Winker added 11 points, and Mitchell Burger 10.

'We came out, executed our plays, pushed the break, which is our main goal this year,” McDermott said. 'I thought we played pretty well on the defensive end, though we've definitely got to get better.”

Xavier is sure to to get a much tougher game Saturday at Waverly-Shell Rock.

'This was fun. We got the ‘W,' played all right tonight,” Winker said. 'It was kind of hard to tell when you go against a (young) team like that. But it was a good outing, I guess you could say.”

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