Basketball

Fire and ice

Sizzling Lady Dawgs ice Billy Moran Tourney title by freezing out Onteora

By RICHARD A. ROSS

LAKE HUNTINGTON, NY - To the casual observer, basketball appears to be a simple game: dribble up the floor and shoot the ball into a basket.

Or to quote the words of Abe Lemons, the legendary coach of Oklahoma City University, “There are only two plays: Romeo and Juliet and put the darn ball in the basket.”

No disrespect intended for the iconic coach whose 40-year tenure led to numerous appearances in the NIT and NCAA tournaments, but basketball is far more complex.

Orchestrating an effective defense to diminish your opponent’s capacity to score is vital to winning. So, too, is an effective offense where players are open to shoot the best percentage shots available.

Now more than ever, scouting teams to break down their strengths and weaknesses is a prerequisite to success.

As both Onteora and Sullivan West approached the championship game of the Billy Moran Tournament on January 27, coaches Alan Occhi of Onteora and Ron Bernhardt schemed to provide their teams with the strategies needed to prevail.

Bernhardt watched Onteora trap S.S. Seward and run havoc with its phenomenal eighth grader Julia Hinchey’s transition lay ups during their first-round victory over the Lady Spartans in this year’s Billy Moran Tip Off Tournament. (See tournament consolation article for the tournament’s origin and use as a fundraiser).

Bernhardt hoped and prayed Hinchey wouldn’t have the same success against his Lady Bulldogs. But Hinchey, who scored a game-high 27 in the opening round, wasn’t going to be the Bulldogs’ only problem.

To defeat Onteora, a team that Sullivan West had lost to on the road two years ago and again in this past summer’s AAU barnstorming tour, Bernhardt had to figure out a way to turn Onteora’s strengths into its weaknesses.

It was to be no easy task. Those strengths manifested themselves in a three-headed monster: Hinchey’s dribbling agility and deft shooting from the floor and the line, the lights-out marksmanship of senior forward Liz Zweibel, who buried Sullivan West in the past, and the jet speed of freshman guard Kira Wrixen, who, despite her diminutive size, is fearless when penetrating the lane.

After a second viewing of the film of the Onteora-Seward game, Bernhardt reversed his initial plan to let Sarah Lander guard Zweibel. Instead, he put Lander on Hinchey and had Jennifer Pitz shadow Zweibel. As a safeguard, he intended to mix in some zone with his normal mainstay of man-to-man defense to minimize the possibility of getting his two key defenders in foul trouble. Too much zone, however, could lead to a repeat of the Indians’ success two years prior wherein they buried their first six three-pointers.

Occhi had much less to draw on. Sullivan West had battered Tri-Valley 71-20 in the opener and showed few of its aces.

Bernhardt’s plans worked well, despite the fact that his team was ice cold in the first quarter and couldn’t throw the ball in the ocean. Onteora led 12-10 at the end of the first quarter. Six of the Bulldogs’ points came off threes from Erin Bernhardt and Donna Kelly. The other four came from the inside game of bigs Rachel Houghtaling and Katrina Graby.

Noticeably absent from the scoring was Lander, who had a free throw to her credit. Although she was struggling, she kept on shooting and drawing the defense. It was only a question of time before she found her stroke.

Onteora netted a three from Zweibel on her first time down the floor. The stifling proximity of defenders caused her to find nothing but air on nearly all of her other long-shot attempts.

Wrixen had six in the first half, and Hinchey had a bucket and a free throw, one of two that the Indians would net out of five attempts. The Bulldogs’ defense turned it up in the second quarter, as they held the Lady Indians to two points, while scoring a modest seven of their own to take a 17-14 lead into halftime.

Following halftime, the crowd settled in for a real competitive game.

Sullivan West began the third frame on a 6-0 run with Houghtaling scoring and then getting a steal that led to Lander’s first basket. She was fouled on her next trip to the rim and hit both free throws.

Onteora countered quickly, with Wrixen ripping down the lane for two and garnering a free throw to match. Lander and Graby pushed the lead up to six at 25-19. Both showed good defensive quickness and effected steals. A nice dish from Onteora’s Jackie Giuditta to Rose Hallinan closed the gap.

Bernhardt had another ace up his sleeve. Onteora’s zone defense afforded gaps, as all zone defenses do. When players rotate to the ball, quick agile passing can create openings. Those openings came on the baseline. Using the strength and size inside of Houghtaling, Sullivan West ran the baseline with Lander and Donna Kelly drawing the help. When the defenders collapsed in, the ball cued out to Houghtaling or her fellow tall tree Graby.

The tactic worked and Sullivan West got two points from Kelly, who got a dish across the lane from Lander. In a counterpunch, Hallinan and Hinchey hit three-pointers and Wrixen got a lay up to make it 31-29 at the end of the third quarter.

Sullivan West showed its mettle in the crucial fourth quarter after Wrixen tied it with another of her daunting flights down the lane. She went right around Houghtaling and laid it in, but that was nearly the end of the Indians’ fire.

Instead, Lander lit the fire on the other side with a huge three to break the tie. Beginning with that shot, Sullivan West would answer with 16 points to Onteora’s additional two to garner the 47-33 victory and the tourney title. Seven of those points came from tournament MVP Lander and six from All-Tournament team member Houghtaling. Wrixen and Hinchey also earned that distinction, as did Tri-Valley’s Skylar Musa and Seward’s Brooke Burnside. Sullivan West finished by going six-for-12 from the line. Wrixen led the Lady Indians (4-8) with 13 points.

Following the game, Occhi acknowledged that the baseline scoring was a factor in his team’s defeat and defined the problem as a lack of execution. “They took us out of our offensive sets. We had them where we wanted them, but when you play a good team, you have to execute at both ends of the floor,” he said. “We didn’t play with consistency. We did it in the first and third quarters, but not in the second or the fourth.”

One team’s offensive struggles are usually a function of the other team’s defensive stand. For the Lady Bulldogs, that was a total team effort. “Last night, it looked like Onteora could get through the lane on anybody,” Bernhardt said.

Wrixen wriggled in there several times, but by and large, Sullivan West neutralized Onteora’s potentially lethal shooters. “We stopped their running game,” Bernhardt concluded.

Offensively, Sullivan West broke the few traps they encountered and got in behind the defense to score off the baseline dishes. It’s not the first time Sullivan West (11-4) has shut down good shooters like Zweibel and capitalized on the inexperience of future stars like Hinchey and Wrixen.

With the coming wars against John S. Burke and the subsequent sectionals, Bernhardt hopes his young team will remember what worked against the Indians. “We need more teams like this on our schedule,” he said. Such challenges will come against Class D reigning champion Chapel Field on January 31, and Class AA Delaware Valley of Pennsylvania on February 2. The rematch with Burke will take place in Goshen on February 13.