RICH KELLY
SAYBROOK TOWNSHIP — The Lakeside Dragons took about four minutes to settle into their routine in the championship battle in the Lakeside Holiday Tournament Saturday night with the Geneva Eagles. Tied at 4-4, the Dragons sprung their trapping defense on the Eagles for the first Lakeside run of the game to open a 20-6 lead.
Lakeside (6-1) never looked back from there, rolling to a tough 71-50 victory to win their own tourney title. St. Martin DePorres nipped the SS. John and Paul Heralds in overtime, 53-50, in the consolation game.
The key element to winning the tournament for Lakeside was team speed and depth. It wasted no time in getting into foul trouble in the game by turning on the pressure defense, but fortunately, that defense had enough success without fouling to start a transition game for easy hoops against Geneva (1-7) to make sure the Eagles could not climb back into the contest.
“Our quickness has paid off for us so far this season,” Dragon coach Rob Pisano said. “We know we will see a lot of different looks defensively to try to stop us.
“One of the best things about this group of kids is that they are very smart, and know how to attack those different looks. When we lost to South the other night, they did about the best job so far of slowing us down, but the kids are seeing different things that they are adapting to.”
Putting on the half court trap early in the game, Lakeside was able to get the ball inside to Emelio Parks (25 points,10 rebounds, 3 blocks). When James Christian got into early foul trouble, Joe Kelly came off the bench to take his place, hit a trio of shots, including a pair of 3-pointers, and his pair of steals made sure there was no dropoff in the defensive pressure aspect.
Parks and Ace Jones (18 points, 8 rebounds, 2 steals, 3 assists) combined for all 21 points for the Dragons as they stretched their lead to 51-33 after three periods. The fourth quarter was a battle of consistent trips to the foul line for both teams as things got a little ragged at both ends of the floor.
“We knew they would pressure us much of the night,” Geneva coach John Marhefka said. “They played well, they got a big run early to get into their tempo of a game, and we didn’t do a good job of reacting to it.”
Geneva held its own on the backboards with the taller Dragons, actually winning by a 28-27 count, but seven blocked shots by the Dragons kept the Eagles from attacking the basket as frequently as they may have had a chance to. They passed up many open shots near the hoop to make extra passes, which is where the intimidation factor comes into play.
Nonetheless, Tyler Erb (15 points, 4 rebounds, 5 assists) reached double-digit scoring, and Jimmy Haines (10 points, 8 rebounds) did a good job on the backboards before fouling out late in the game, and eight of the nine Eagle players scored, but Joey Streets was the only other Eagle with more than five points.
Beside the 43 points between Jones and Parks for Lakeside, they also got eight each from Kelly and Rashaad Bell, and seven more from Cody Blizzard.
St. Martin Deporres 53, SJP 50
In the consolation battle, St. Martin DePorres (1-6) jumped out to a 10-2 lead behind a pair of 3-pointers from Kenneth Tutstone (19 points, 4 rebounds, 4 assists) and another from Durrond Porter, but the Heralds (0-6), battled back to take a brief 11-10 lead before the teams went back and forth, with the biggest lead being for SJP at 38-35 on a Steve Robison steal and layup with four minutes to play in regulation.
“In the second half, we looked to get the ball into the post more, then fake and kick it back out to our guards,” Lions coach Myron Jackson said. “We’re still learning to follow our game plans, and we didn’t do it too well, but we shot the ball much better than we did last night (against Geneva). The biggest thing for us was getting all the kids into the game for at least three minutes. It was a team effort all the way, and everyone did a good job.”
Beside the big night from Tutstone, Chris Barnes also came up big, hitting for 17 points.
The Heralds had some good moments as they hustled all over the court, but at times they got out of control, and those seemed to be the times the Lions would strike fastest.
“We just didn’t execute well at all tonight,” SJP coach Tom Penna said. “We had a late lead, and instead of holding the ball and moving it around, we pushed the ball inside, missed a shot and they got the ball and got a fast-break hoop on us. We missed too many shots inside, they didn’t and that was the main thing for us tonight.”
Jake Phelps paced the Herald attack with 12 points, four steals and four assists. Colby added 10 on four hoops, including a pair of threes. Steve Robison and Eric Simon each added eight points, but the Heralds never got into any kind of offensive flow all night.
Kelly is a freelance writer from Jefferson.
