THREE TEAMS TIED FOR FIRST AFTER FOUR WEEKS OF OBA SHORE AREA SUMMER LEAGUE PLAY!
TEAM GOLDSMITH TOO MAHERVELOUS FOR TEAM LAMARCA
Overcoming a 6 point halftime deficit, Drew Maher’s 14 point third quarter outburst proved to be the difference in Team Goldsmith’s (3-1) exciting 42-40 win over Team LaMarca (1-3) at Maple Place. The game was filled with tremendous individual performances and, due to a LOT of missed foul shots, the outcome was in doubt almost until the final buzzer sounded. Kevin “The Manster” Pennell was a force for Team LaMarca in the first quarter. He dominated the boards, scored 6 points and kept Gil Goldsmith out of the paint with tremendous man to man defense as Team LaMarca raced out to a 14-7 lead. Pennell added another 4 points and a boatload of rebounds in the second quarter, leading Team LaMarca to a seemingly safe 23-17 halftime lead. Pennell, who fashions himself as his generation’s Charles Barkley, was sure that his team was going to upset the first place Goldsmith squad, “We had it all. We were rebounding. We were scoring. We were playing defense. We were on our way to knocking off the strongest team in the league.” When asked what went wrong, Pennell replied, “And then, in the third quarter, Drew happened.”
Maher exploded for 14 of his game high 16 points in the third quarter, at one point scoring 10 consecutive points, all of them in the paint. Maher's outburst keyed a 19-2 third quarter run by Team Goldsmith and they emerged from the third quarter with a 36-25 lead. Team Goldsmith’s coach, Evan Coffey, while impressed with Maher’s offensive onslaught, believed that the key to the turnaround was great defense, "Let's face it, chicks dig offense, but defense wins games. We win games."
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As Team LaMarca’s coach, Justin Costell, said after the game, “Maher was like a difficult math equation and I didn’t have an answer. This happens to me all the time at Shore Regional, too.”
But Team Lamarca wasn’t done. Trailing by 10 points with less than two minutes to go, the LaMarcas took advantage of poor substitution patterns by Team Goldsmith’s Coach, Evan Coffey. “We couldn’t believe that he had Gil Goldsmith on the bench in the fourth quarter,” said Chris LaMarca, “and I think that Evan goes to Allied Health Academy. How could somebody so dopey as to let Gil Goldsmith sit the fourth quarter get into such a good high school?” With Goldsmith glued to the bench, Team LaMarca chipped away at the lead behind the hot shooting of Matt O’Donnell (8 points in the fourth quarter, 12 overall) and Charlie Ruoff (5 points in the fourth quarter, 8 overall) and the rebounding of Matt Pennell to get within 2 points with under 10 seconds to go in the game. Gil Goldsmith, who had been re-inserted into the game with about 90 seconds left, was fouled with 7 seconds left to go in the game and was awarded two foul shots. Team LaMarca, with no time outs left to call, was hoping for Goldsmith to miss at least one foul shot so that they could get the rebound and take a desperation 3-pointer. Instead, essentially having been frozen out for 7 minutes and 30 seconds by his own coach, Goldsmith missed both foul shots, and Matt O’Donnell of Team LaMarca grabbed the rebound and headed up court with the speed of a gazelle and the dexterity of a mountain goat for the game tying or game winning shot. Unfortunately, as it turns out, neither gazelles nor mountain goats are that good at basketball and, as the overflow crowd of 800 people rose to their feet in breathless anticipation of a magic moment, Matt was tied up in the lane by several Team Goldsmith players before he could get his shot off. The refs called a jump ball with 1.7 seconds left to go and, on the alternate possession, the ball was awarded to Team Goldsmith, thereby ending the LaMarca’s valiant comeback attempt. After the rotten fruits and vegatables that were thrown at the refs after the call were cleaned up, the game ended quietly on an inbounds pass from Mikey Deusch to Gil Goldmsith in the backcourt.
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Mrs. MaryAlyce Turner, a fan who attends all of the rec basketball games because she has nothing better to do, was so excited by Team LaMarca’s comeback that she said, “This was more exciting than the time I was named President of my home school class!” Team Goldsmith remains in a three way tie for first place with Team Harvey and Team Saible. Team Goldsmith battles Team Harvey for first place this Friday at 8:00 pm at Shore Regional High School.
TEAM SAIBLE STAYS IN FIRST PLACE WITH 43-36 WIN OVER TEAM DUBOIS
Kevin Degnan (11 points, many fancy passes) led a balanced scoring attack as Team Saible, playing without its Captain, Brian Saible, outscored Team Dubois in the fourth quarter 16-9 to remain in a tie for first place. Degnan, who gets his passing gene from his mother’s side of the family, distributed the ball well throughout the entire game and his teammates Jack Zenkert (12 points), Gunnar Schuelzky (9 points), Kyle Koob (8 points), Zack Hoyle (1 point) and Liam Rempel (2 points) made sure that his passes resulted in assists. The teams entered the third quarter tied at 19-19, and found themselves in a 27-27 tie at the end of the third quarter. Kevin Dubois (13 points), Brandon “Long Range in My Range” Waeschle (5 points), Jack Dubois (6 points) and Alex Palmberg (8 points) all had hot shooting hands for Team Dubois, but clutch 4th quarter foul shooting by Team Saible’s Zenkert, Schuelzky, Degnan and Hoyle made the difference in the last few minutes. Zenkert, who scored 8 points in the last stanza, was particularly thrilled with how cool, calm and collected his team was at the foul line, saying, “This is what all that hard work we put in during the pre-season was for! Running up those hills for six months at 6:00 a.m. with 25lb weights tied to our hips, really made a difference for us tonight.” When reminded that there isn’t a kid in Oceanport who has EVER run up a hill at 6:00 am with 25lb weights tied to his hips, Zenkert was quick to note, “Well, OK, that’s true and everything, but we played like we had done all that hard work and it makes for a nice story.”
CAMERON LEADS TEAM HARVEY TO 49-35 VICTORY OVER TEAM SHIRLEY
Max Cameron’s 12 point outburst helped Team Harvey (3-1) maintain its hold on first place by way of a 49-35 drubbing of Team Shirley (0-4). Team Shirley jumped out to a quick 12-9 lead in the first quarter as Jake “Afterburner” Turner exploded for all of his team’s points on a variety of long range jumpers, drives to the hoop and, incredibly, a foul shot. Unfortunately for Turner, he would only score 3 more points the rest of the game and Team Shirley, playing without Captain A.J. Shirley, was outscored 11-5 in the second quarter by Team Harvey. Cameron entered the game in the second quarter and went to work, hitting two bombs from beyond the arc during the period. Charlie Straine also drained a 3 pointer for the Harveys and Kadison Bates chipped in with a basket of his own as their squad closed out the first half with a slim 20-17 lead.
The second half was all Team Harvey. Turner lost his touch from both the field and the foul line in the third quarter, and Team Shirley’s only scorers in the period were Winston Riepl (5 points) and Jack Zenkert (3 points). Turner, who was on fire in the first half, noted that he cooled off because of an injury to his hand, noting, "My fingers didn't feel right after I hit them on the rim dunking in practice at half time." Cameron’s hot hand continued in the third quarter (6 points), however, and teammates JP Harvey (6 points) and Nick Crochet (2 points) helped Team Harvey to a 34-25 lead going into the fourth quarter. Kyle Koob dropped in 7 points in the 4th quarter for Team Shirley, but a barrage of 3 point shots by Straine, Bates and Matt Altomare (11 points for the game), helped Team Harvey to a 15-10 advantage in the final quarter. The win left Team Harvey as one of the three teams tied for first place.
Team Harvey takes on Team Goldsmith on Friday at 8:00 pm at Shore Regional High School. This is the headline game on Friday’s slate and, as always, it will be broadcast on ESPN41 in 3-D (where available). OBA’s pre-game show, “Suburban Rec Streetball Overview”, hosted by America’s premier suburban rec basketball analysts, Tom “The Tactician” Dolan and Chris “Doctor Boxout” Paglia, starts at 7:30 pm.
