Basketball

The Twilight Zone

Panthers stun Sullivan West as The Pit features second otherworldly win

By RICHARD A. ROSS

MONTICELLO, NY - There ought to be a sign. And it would read, “Visitors to The Pit in Monticello beware: You're traveling to another dimension, a dimension not only of sight and sound... but of mind. A journey into a wondrous land, whose boundaries are only that of the imagination... you're entering... The Twilight Zone.”

That was the iconic introduction to the 1959 television series by the same name whose quirky drama would later spawn a pair of TV series revivals, a movie, comics and a magazine.

Years later “The Twilight Zone” has come back to life. Indeed, those aforementioned words may have to be written on a signpost outside the Monticello gym where the bizarre became the norm for the second time in a week.

Just two days after Chris Russo’s young lithe Panthers stunned Liberty in overtime, Monticello won again, this time by beating Sullivan West 66-64. Once again, the Panthers evinced compelling late drama and grit, made timely free throws and benefited from a fortuitous late-possession arrow.

Compelling games are generic to the two teams. Monticello holds a slight edge since 2003-04 when the Westies won both games, including a 62-61 early version of “The Twilight Zone,” fueled by a last second three by Joe Meyer in The Pit. The Dawgs had won the earlier season match up at home 64-56 as Sean Kelly had led with 19.

Now with Sean’s dad, Cliff, as Bulldogs’ head coach, the drama continues. Kelly took over the reigns last season.

The Monties won in 2005 and 2006. Last year, the Bulldogs pulled off a 45-43 win in Lake Huntington.

Coming into this year’s tilt, the Bulldogs had won six straight. They seemed to be on the verge of seventh heaven, leading by 14 points just prior to halftime. That margin became 11 with a much-needed three pointer by Monticello sophomore Jesse Kapito.

In a game played in the two 16-minute halves format, Sullivan West seemed unfazed by the mystique of playing in The Pit, outscoring its opponents 18-15 in the first eight minutes and 17-9 in the second eight minutes to take a 35-24 lead into halftime.

During the first half, Monticello had lapses of intensity, interspersed with flurries of scoring, that afforded just enough points to keep the game from getting completely out of reach. As Russo would later point out, “Just like the other night, we lost our intensity. The crowd wasn’t into it, the cheerleaders weren’t into it and our bench wasn’t into it.”

Russo challenged his team about their lack of effort for the latter part of the first half. Early on, the Panthers had taken an early 4-0 lead before falling behind and evincing runs, which afforded a 19-18 lead with 7:14 remaining in the first half.

But Sullivan West’s dominance on the boards and its superior execution soon spawned a 12-0 run as the Panthers got into major foul trouble as captain Briar Patterson and Shamell Moore both garnered three first-half fouls. Russo’s bench players were severely overmatched by the Bulldogs, leading to the Westies’ burgeoning lead.

By the half, Brad Reimer had scored 13 of his team-high 21, including a three pointer, a pair of buckets and six for eight from the stripe. Sullivan West’s free-throw shooting would end up at 74 percent with its canning of 20 of 24 from the line.

James Spruill had seven of his eventual 18 points. In the game’s waning minutes, he canned a pair of threes to thrust Sullivan West into the position of stealing the game back from the Monties who, in the late going, seemed destined to grab another improbable victory.

Panthers in the wild are immensely dangerous. They can lie still, stalk their prey and leap out of the bush with uncanny speed and agility. Once they get their quarry in the vice-like grip of their jaws, it usually proves lethal. Russo’s squad’s second-half play confirms that his aggregation of sophomores and juniors are living up the reputation of their namesakes.

Despite an 11-point lead at the half, Kelly wasn’t pleased that his team hadn’t put the Panthers away. All too familiar with the gym’s mystique and wary of the team that had just sullied a league adversary, Kelly hoped his team could put the hammer down, improve to 7-1 and derive the confidence they would need to take on nemesis Burke two days hence in the Eagles’ aerie. Neither happened. Burke subsequently trounced the Bulldogs 86-40.

Allowing Kapito to hit two threes in the first half was a sore point for Kelly. It only got worse. Kapito scored 19 with four threes by game’s end.

By the time Sullivan West exited the gym, Kelly’s assessment of the outcome was terse: “They wanted it more than we did.”

At the half, Russo told his team, “This is not the way we’re supposed to play. If you can honestly look each other in the eye and say I’m doing my absolute best to win this game, then I’ve overestimated our ability.”

Coaching is not just about x’s and o’s. It’s about motivation.

Moore opened the second half with a three pointer and, a minute later, got his own rebound and thrust it back in. A Spruill put back made it 37-29, but a dish from Patterson to Austin Billig got the home crowd going.

Dan Figueroa picked up his fourth foul, but Reimer scored to keep his team up by 10 after canning a pair from the stripe. A free throw by Spruill stretched the lead to 11 at 9:06, but a ringing three by Patterson and a subsequent downtowner from Kapito stirred the local denizens into a tizzy.

With their lead down to five, Sullivan West picked a poor time to go cold. Reimer missed a three, Spruill traveled, and Monticello completed a 10-0 run that included another three from Moore. The Monties now trailed by one and were clearly feeling the love.

Frank Small was fouled and hit one of two to tie the game at 48-all as the theme music from “The Twilight Zone” began to play in this writer’s head.

Sullivan West retook the lead and extended it to five as Figueroa hit two from the stripe. But with 3:53 to go, Moore decked another trey to tie it back at 50-all.

Moore would end up with a game-high 22 points that included three treys and three for six from the line, including critical late ones that kept his team ahead, albeit not by much.

Justin Armstrong stole an inbounds pass and converted it to put the Bulldogs back on top 52-50. Small hit a three-pointer to put his team back on top by one.

Figueroa fouled out on the next possession. Moore hit both free throws to make it 55-52. R.J. Rosa missed a three and Moore hit another from downtown to make it 58-52 with 2:27 to go. Reimer scored easily on the inbounds pass, and Small hefted up a miss far too quickly at the other end. Subsequently, Billig turned it over and Moore fouled Rosa, who hit both. The Monties led 60-56 but a no-look dish from Patterson to Small seemed to make it a comfortable 62-56.

Spruill hit a three to make it 62-59 with 49 seconds remaining. Monticello inbounded. Moore was trapped and Russo called a time out. Armstrong fouled Moore, who hit one of two. Now leading 63-59, the Monties needed to just get back and defend.

Instead, Billig fouled Reimer. Somehow the normally steady shooter missed on the front end of the one and one. Patterson was fouled and hit one of two and the lead was now 64-59. To his credit, Billig had done a good job at the point with a number of key assists.

Game over?

Not yet. Spruill hit another three with 22 seconds remaining as the Bulldogs pulled within a bucket of tying it and a three of winning it.

Just then, the scoreboard got unplugged for added drama.

Each coach drew up a scheme. Monticello had failed to get the ball inbounds twice during the first half. Another such miscue could cost them the game.

Russo had already made adjustments to deal with that, but he reminded his team how this needed to play out.

Kelly advised denying the inbounds or quickly fouling if that didn’t pan out.

Kapito, Monticello’s best shooter, got the ball from a well-executed screen. He hit one of two to make it 65-62, but when Rosa hit a quick bucket with five seconds to go the lead was down to one.

Inbounding successfully again sent the sophomore back to the line with three seconds. He hit one of two and this time the Westies just ran out of time.

“That’s reality. That’s high school basketball,” Kelly averred. “You’re flying high, you see your name in the paper and you think you’re gonna come in here and just win. This might be the best thing that can happen to us before we go to Burke for a key league game.” Kelly agreed that no lead is ever safe.

“It’s tough,” he said.

“This win brings us to .500 (5-5) and that’s huge,” said Russo. “We said that the three games this week against tough opponents were very important to our season. We felt if we could win the first [against Liberty], win the second [against SW] and win a league game at Goshen on January 16, we’d be 6-5 and 2-0 in the league.

Monticello lost to Goshen by 15 and are now 1-1 in their division and 4-5 overall.

Sullivan West fell to 6-2.

Monticello was nine of 19 from the line for 47 percent. They had seven threes on the night and turned the ball over 17 times to Sullivan West, which coughed it up eight times. In addition to Reimer’s 21 and Spruill’s 18, Figueroa had 10 points on the night.

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