Kennedy Boys Basketball Wallops Valley Stream North 68-32

One might reasonably call Wednesday evening's 68-32 final at Valley Stream North (0-7) a cakewalk, or a drubbing, by the 3-1 Kennedy Cougars boys basketball squad. But for head coach Rory Block, the lopsided victory was just another chance for his team to play the game of basketball.

"You've always got to play hard," Block said after witnessing 10 Cougars put points on the board against the Spartans. "Even if you're down, you concentrate on doing the same thing: playing the game."

That's precisely what the Cougars did, running up a 20-point lead and never letting up against a Valley Stream North team that, in addition to having gone winless thus far, was playing without its biggest players.

The height disparity between Kennedy's 6-foot-10 center Brian O'Gorman and the  Spartans was overwhelming. He was able to pull in rebounds even when boxed out, by simply going straight up and reaching over men in front of him for the ball.

"Brian was a tough match up for them," Block said.

"I had some height, but we've had some important kids out for the break, and I couldn't play them tonight," Spartans head coach Fabian Jara said. "We tried to double their 6-foot-10 guy up, but they've got some great three-point shooting too."

Jara was referring to Cougars point guard Joey Karo, who was lights out from three-point range, hitting four treys en route to a 16-point performance.

"Joey hit some crazy threes," said O'Gorman, who finished 16 points of his own to go along with nine rebounds. "When they collapsed on me, I just kicked it back out. I found him or someone else to get it out to."

Other starters contributing in the Kennedy scoring spree, thanks to the O'Gorman-Karo inside/outside game, were Adrian Rose, Will Colon, Mike Teach and Jason Champagne, who combined for 22 points. Colon also grabbed six rebounds.

With the Cougars maintaining a comfortable 20-point lead and looking to be in little danger of losing hold of it, a number of Kennedy's "second squad" players got significant time on the floor from the middle of the third quarter on.

And, a few minutes into it, they began to demonstrate that they could produce as readily as the starting rotation against the Spartans. Senior point guard Keith Safon ran the floor effectively, while pulling in a number of loose ball rebounds and scoring four points Juniors Ben Canarick, who added six points and six rebounds, and Zack Hecht, who grabbed four rebounds, were tenacious in the forward slots, and senior guard Andrew Hirsch saw good action as well.

In fact, when the fourth quarter points were tallied, the Cougar's second squad had outscored the Spartans 17-7.

Kennedy will host Valley Stream Central in their first game of the new year on Jan. 4 at 7 p.m.

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