RallyNorth.net

Pythons fend off Jaguars

Tuesday, February, 10 By Jeff Hamrick

PELHAM — The outcome might have been as close as any match up in the series, but the result was the same as it's been since the border rivalry began five years ago.

Trailing by five midway through the final quarter, Pelham held Windham scores the final 4:20 and managed to score enough to eke out a 55-52 victory before a rowdy crowd in the Snake Pit.

Not only was the victory the Pythons' 10th straight since the beginning of the year, it also kept Pelham undefeated against the Jaguars in the 10-game series. But an affair that featured 18 lead changes was never settled until a Cole Gill three from the top hit both the front and back of the rim before bouncing free as the buzzer sounded.

"They had a nice game plan," Pelham coach Matt Regan said of the Jags effort, which matched the previous smallest margin of victory in the series. "We weren't prepared for the different types of zones they were going in and out of. We have to do a better job of executing."

Neither team led by more than three as the Pythons (15-1) entered the fourth leading 41-40. A trey from the top by Keith Brown helped Pelham to its biggest lead, but the Jaguars never lost touch.

Point guard David Carbonello powered a quick Windham surge, scoring four of his team-high 16 on back-to-back possessions and added an assist on a three by Marco Allanach. And when Gill answered a Brown three-point play with a three of his own, the Jags held a 52-47 lead.

That's when Pelham, which had scored at least 74 in six of its previous nine, took control.

A three from the elbow by Ryan Cloutier and a jumper by Brown tied the score at 52 with 2:11 left. Ryan Rondeau and Brown, who scored 17 of his game-high 22 after intermission, combined to make three of four charity tosses for the game's only points down the stretch.

"I don't think we executed very well tonight," said Brown, who has averaged 22.8 points in six games against the Jags. "We didn't run the plays like we should. They kept switching their defenses and we didn't realize it. At the end, we figured it out and the baskets came easy to us."

Windham, which had converted 47.8 percent of its first 47 shots, missed on each of its final six attempts in the game.

"It's an awesome rivaly, but it sucks losing like this at the end," said Carbonello, who also had four assists.

Pelham senior David Rogers had a big third quarter, scoring nine of his 11 with a trifecta of threes in a 3-minute span.

"It's a luxury to have a kid that normally is a fifth scoring option for us, but on most teams would be a 15-points-a-night guy. We had a couple guys who didn't play well offensively that are normally average 15-16 points a game. David really got us going in that third quarter."

The teams combined for a mere 21 turnovers in a well-played game.