|
|||||||||||||
Printer-Friendly
Email this Story
Post a Comment (0)
Tiger boys try to rebound
The 2009-10 school year has treated two of Brentsville District's varsity boys teams worse than any time Tiger fans can remember.After the football team ended the fall season winless at 0-10, the basketball squad isn't holding up much better at 2-8.
Last week, the boys dropped back-to-back games against Millbrook (52-45) and Broad Run (69-40) on Jan. 12 and 13.
Brentsville coach Chris Southcott explained that his team at least had a fighting chance against the Millbrook Pioneers, but again faced a fourth-quarter collapse.
"We're trying to get them not to be complacent with the fact that you don't ever believe you're going to win until you have that belief, until you're fed up with it, so that was one of the things we just talked about tonight," said Southcott after the Broad Run route.
The Broad Run Spartans (13-1), however, showed why they are in the running for a Group AA state crown. After taking a 28-17 lead into halftime, the two teams played almost even in the third quarter, with Broad Run out-gunning Brentsville by only one point (15-14).
The Spartans unnerved and completely unraveled Brentsville in the final period though, by a 26-9 margin.
Six-foot-five Spartan senior guard Kevin McGaughey (23 points) alone put up 11 points in the fourth quarter.
Whenever Brentsville attempted to get something - anything - going, Broad Run found a way to either disrupt the Tigers' flow or one-up them.
"Instead of coming down and getting a quick shot, we had an eight-point lead which turned to 10 which turned to 12 because we really protected the ball pretty well and with the extra pass," said Broad Run coach John Costello. "We got it inside, got a real good shot, and we kind of hurt their momentum."
Broad Run effectively used McGaugey's size against the shorter Brentsville team throughout the night, especially during fast-break transitions.
"It really is a hard thing to play him zone because we can throw it so high up in the air on the skip and it's harder to recover from that. He's a real good shooter. And if they started to come out, we just went inside," said Costello.
Trailing by 23 points late, Brentsville senior Justin Weaver (13 points) drained one of the Tigers' three 3-pointers of the night only for Broad Run to storm back with a coast-to-coast layup off the inbound pass.
The Spartans quickly regained possession, allowing senior Ahmad Zafar (18 pts), who came in off the bench, to put up another two points in the face of one-on-one coverage.
"(He) created a lot of shots for himself. He's really good at finishing and he was a good plus for us tonight," said Costello.
Moments earlier, two Broad Run foul shots turned into four when referees called a technical foul against Southcott for dissenting with the referees' call. Broad Run managed to put an exclamation point on the series after the foul shots with a 3-pointer.
Costello said Brentsville's primary struggle came when Broad Run managed to beat the Tigers' zone defense, which Southcott opted to apply most of the night.
McGaughey, Zafar and Taylor Johnson (10 points) all put up double-digit scoring while only Weaver did the same for Brentsville.
Tiger junior K.C. Willard came in second on the team with nine points while senior David Heller (5 points), junior David Hammond (5 points), senior Cole Farmer (4 points) and junior Zach Conner (4 points) rounded out Brentsville's scoring.
"They really didn't want to go man with us. They stayed zone but again they wanted us to play slow because of our depth and our speed. And once we started getting them into the press, we pretty much jumped in and never looked back," said Costello.
According to Southcott, his team had trouble responding to the pressure of being down late in the ball game. That meant the Tigers took shots without great setups.
When those didn't fall, Broad Run brought in the boards better and turned the ball back around up court.
"In the fourth quarter, we got into a situation where we feel like we needed to play catch-up basketball and our kids are coming down, taking quick shots, we're not rotating back, they're getting long rebounds, short rebounds, but they're up the floor quick," said Southcott.
Southcott credited Weaver for being the go-to guy on the floor, especially against a top-flight team like Broad Run. And while he sank the only Brentsville 3-pointer of the fourth quarter, the Tigers needed more work all around to stay in the game.
"(Justin's) the kid that's got to do the most for us. He didn't shoot real well tonight but he's got to have the green light because he's one of our true scorers," said the coach.
Despite the grizzly record, Brentsville does still have a chance for success during the regular season with the hopes of landing at least one home game in the Evergreen District tournament, which starts next month. Heading into last Wednesday, the Tigers had only played three district games with another five left on the calendar.
"Every day, it's the cliche: we're trying to get better every day, whether it's from the individual standpoint or it's a team point,” Southcott said. “I know every coach says that, but we're definitely not of the mentality to (say), 'Hey, we're just playing for the tournament.' We could be right there."
You must be logged in to post a comment.