Kennedy Offense Sets the Pace in Win Over Mepham

For the Mepham Pirates, it was a chance to keep the spark going after their first win of their 2010-11 basketball season. For the Kennedy Cougars, it was a chance to right their ship after losing three in a row and falling to the middle of the pack in the conference AA-III standings.

In a fast-paced Friday night game played before a large crowd at Kennedy High School for "Jam the Gym" night, it was the Cougars (5-3) who came out on top with a decisive 67-51 win over the 1-7 Pirates.

“This was an important win for us,” said Kennedy’s Adrian Rose, who was a dominating figure on the court with 20 points -- including five three-pointers -- and a jaw-dropping 17 rebounds. “We’ve had a three-game losing streak and we needed to pick it back up. We know there’s only five games left in the regular season.”

“They shot better than us and we had to play catch up, which took us out of our game plan,” Mepham coach Rich Wojcieski said. “We knew they could hit three’s, but we just let them get too many of them.”

Nine, to be exact, as Cougar point guard Joey Karo, who finished with 15 points, added three treys to Rose’s five, and senior guard Mike Teich chipped in one of his own. Meanwhile, Brian O’Gorman was dominant in the paint, with 14 points, 11 rebounds, and five blocked shots.

Not that Mepham was without its offensive firepower. Leading the way for the Pirates was point guard Kyle Wexler with 13 points and Jordan Gilroy with 11 points and eight rebounds. There was also the tandem outside shooting of Dan Kaminski, who finished with nine points, and J.T. Alsasser, who finished with eight points.

“Wexler had a good game going to the hoop, and Jordan fought hard,” Wojcieski said.

It was not enough to slow down the Cougars potent offense, however. Kennedy raced out to a 24-16 lead in the first quarter on the strength of a 14-0 run from that Mepham was only partially able to offset with a 7-0 run of their own to close out the first eight minutes.

Kennedy jumped out to an even bigger lead in the second quarter after Karo and Will Colon, four points, lead the Cougars offense to a 46-26 hafltime lead.

The second half was more of the same, with Kennedy holding off a furious Pirates rally in the third, and then sealing the deal early in the fourth with a pair of Rose three-pointers that kept the margin beyond any hope of a Mepham comeback.

There were at least two moments in the game that had fans of Kennedy gasping for air. The first came with a buzzer-beating Hail Mary three-pointer at the half from Rose. “The clock was running out and our offense was kind of sloppy, so I just put it up,” the Cougar forward said. “That bucket felt awesome.”

The second came midway in the furiously paced third quarter. With both teams throwing their game into high gear and Mepham laying on a full court press, Rose lobbed a court-long inbounds pass to O’Gorman, who took two bounding steps to the bucket and jammed it home.

“I was getting an average of a dunk a game last year, but this year it’s been more like one a month,” the Kennedy center said. “I’ve been looking for one, and Adrian found me.”

“I thought our offense did a better job today,” Cougars coach Rory Block added. “Yes, we outscored them, but we also gave them 16 points in that first quarter. So it was important that our offense was working well.”

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