Owls Ignite Home Crowd, Secure First Win in Rematch

When it comes to heavyweight rematches, this may not have had the pregame hype or historical clout of 1975’s Thrilla in Manila boxing match between Mohammad Ali and Joe Fraser. However, the game played today by the Pine Point Panthers and the Country School Owls before an amazing standing-room-only crowd, was nothing short of a heroic rematch. 

After the opening game loss to the Panthers up in Stonington, the Owls were set on revenge. Yet revenge doesn’t just happen. Revenge takes a plan. As game day approached, there were two things the 14 TCS teammates knew in their hearts and their minds:

To say that these two things came to fruition on the Tuesday afternoon game in DeFrancis Gymnasium would be a vast understatement. The boys didn’t just play hard, they poured every ounce of energy they had onto the court for 32 full minutes. 

After turning the ball over on the first possession of the game, the Owls initiated a tenacious full court press they’d nicknamed “Archimedes.” With Harper Merrill and Oliver Malloy hounding the Pine Point guards in the back court, the team blitzed to a quick 6-0 lead with two transition baskets from Harper and another short jumper in the paint from Kyle Jacobson.Whereas the game in Stonington two weeks prior had seen Country School stumble to an early 10-0 deficit, this game instead saw the energy, hustle, and teamwork land the Country Owls in a position of authority that they would not relinquish for the entirety of the game. 

In fact, for the first eight-minute quarter of the game, every player who checked in from the bench continued to notch up the intensity. Cam McNamara and Lucas Ferguson-Cormier were downright adhesive as they blanketed the opposition, while Sam Gagliardi and Ben Nathanson canvassed the perimeter, keeping the Panther sharpshooters from getting open. After a hard foul on Oliver Molloy and a 1-for-2 trip to the line, TCS held a 7-0 lead as the clock wound down. In the closing seconds, however, Pine Point threw a deep pass that was intercepted by Jake Svitila at midcourt. Taking two dribbles to his left, Jake launched a half court baseball shot that was followed by a resounding “SMACK” as a Pine Point player’s hand slapped Jake’s forearm. The whistle blew and, despite Pine Point’s Coach Hurtgen’s contesting, Jake was awarded three free throws. Going 1-3 at the line, Jake was mobbed by his teammates as he nursed the growing bruise on his arm after having given them an 8-0 lead at the quarter.

Holding a team scoreless is always an impressive feat, but mind you, this was an opponent that had put up 30 points on the Young Owls a week prior, pummeling them with a tenacious full-court press and a score of 30-17. 

In the second quarter, Mason Brown led the way on the boards. Though he didn’t notch a point, his deft post play limited the opposition’s chances at the rim and ensured the Owls got their talons on most of the rebounds that came their way. Pine Point finally got on the board early with some nice attacks of the paine, but TCS still managed to outscore them 12-10 for the quarter behind two great buckets from Oliver, another 4 points from Harper as he corralled a handful of rebounds, and another nice spot up jumper from Kyle. The best play of the half, though, came as the result of some nifty passing as Gideon McDonough drove baseline, threaded a bounce pass to Sam Collins who immediately fired the ball to Edward Barney for a close range jumper. It was this style of quick passing and selflessness that–reminiscent of the San Antonio Spurs of the mid-2000s–left the crowd roaring with approval throughout the first half. Holding a 10 point lead at half time (20-10), the momentum was on Country’s side. 

When asked about his halftime talk, Coach McDonough remarked, “I just told the team that we were executing our game plan perfectly. Sure, we’d won the half, but we still had to play hard and keep our attitudes positive no matter what happened.” When it came to how they’d responded after a week of practice, McDonough credited the hustle and rebounding. “From top to bottom, we know our strengths are our positivity and our athleticism. Not everyone on the team is a basketball player, but every player is important and we couldn’t have gotten off to this hot start without contributions from everyone.”

As one might expect, the third quarter saw Pine Point come out firing as they went on a little 8-2 run to cut the lead to 4. The Owls’ bench, however, began a thundering cheer of “DE-FENSE!” with their feet slamming against the hardwood and shaking the chairs. The positivity and bench energy worked. Running the point by himself, Cam did a really nice job of sharing the ball and ensuring his teammates were set up to be successful. One of those teammates was Ari Croog Zehavi who was playing in his first basketball game ever having recently joined the team as a midseason acquisition. Coach McDonough admitted he was unsure whether the new teammate would get in the game: “You know, I spoke with Ari during our chalk talk session before the game,” McDonough acknowledged. “I explained how delighted I was to have him join us, but I wanted to ensure he felt comfortable. ‘You’ll be our hype man on the bench for the first half, but I’ll check in during halftime and if you give me the thumbs up, I’ll make sure we get you in.’” And play he did! Ari was more than ready as he checked into the game and earned a rousing cheer from his teammates. On his second possession, in fact, Ari lined up in the “Stack” formation for an inbounds play and ended up playing a perfect pass as the “safety” at midcourt. With the precision of a pro, Ari pivoted to his right and delivered a great chest pass to the waiting hands of Lucas. 

Soon after, Harper had a tough three point play (a basket plus the foul!) that got the entire team to their feet from the bench and extended the lead back to 7. The physicality didn’t end there, however, as on the next possession, Gideon McDonough grabbed one of his many offensive rebounds in the quarter, and then was absolutely mauled on the shot, landing in a heap near the sideline. He shook it off and hit one of the two free throws to extend the lead to 8. A slight substitution mishap by the Owls resulted in 6 men on the floor and a technical foul, but the result was only one point on a 1-2 trip to the charity stripe. Toward the end of the quarter Oliver Molloy nailed a beautiful running floater from the right baseline to take a 28-18 lead into the final frame.  

Still, despite the great resilience of the team, Pine Point was not finished. Pulling within 6 on two quick baskets, Pine Point trailed 22-28. Another drive from Oliver and a 50% trip to the line for Kyle extended the lead back to 9. The teams would trade baskets from there on out with both teams pressing from end-to-end. During the run, Sam Collins, Jake and Lucas were absolute wrecking balls, wreaking havoc with at least ten steals in the game between them. The two most impressive offensive plays of the final quarter included a brilliant ATO (after time out) play from Harper as he zipped to the block for a lofting pass and careened through the lane, laying it softly off the glass illustrating his ever-evolving body control with the ball. The other play was a transition drive by Gideon. After a contested rebound, he drove the right side of the court and, finding a defender blocking his way, changed direction with an elusive eurostep that wowed the crowd.

Up 9 as the clock wound down, the bench was going wild. A half-court heave at the buzzed banked in for Pine Point, but luckily the damage had been done. 

Country School 35

Pine Point 29

The team now moves to .500 for the year and earns a split with the Panthers. 

After the game, McDonough was beside himself as the team gathered together. “That was one of the most fun games of basketball I’ve ever been a part of,” he smiled. “I could name at least three things every single player did that helped us with that game. Not everyone scored, but there were moments where guys like Mason got the rebound we needed to keep the possession alive, or Ben and Sam G glued themselves to defenders to ensure they couldn’t penetrate…just so awesome. I am speechless.”

Leading the way in the scoring were Harper with a stellar TCS career-high (15), Oliver (9), Kyle (5), Gideon (3), Edward (2), Jake (1).

TCS doesn’t have much rest as next up for the Owls is an away game on Thursday against the Falcons of Foote School.