RallyNorth.net

Sun, Jan 08, 2012 02:30 PM @ Whittier

Team	1	2	3	4	Final
Pentucket	17	18	15	7	57
Whittier	14	14	22	12	62

Reyes, zone keep Whittier undefeated

Sunday, January, 08 By Jeff Hamrick

Reyes, zone keep Whittier undefeated

BY JEFF HAMRICK

sports@eagletribune.com

 

HAVERHILL – A couple games of watching from the bench had an affect on Justin Reyes.

A coach’s decision to keep the Whittier junior off the court in conference victories over Chelsea and Shawsheen obviously provided motivation as Reyes erupted for a season-high 26 points and led the Wildcats to a come-from-behind 62-57 victory over Pentucket.

“He’s a kid, that if you look in the box scores didn’t play the last two games,” Whittier coach Tom Sipsey said about the 6-foot-3 Reyes. “Then he comes out and he’s able to do this today. I talk to him all the time about the opportunity he has and the effect he has on this team. I hope he’s able to understand what he means, and that he’s consistent and able to rise to that level.”

Reyes, who also had 16 rebounds – 10 on the offensive end – and two blocks, scored 10 in the second quarter to keep Whittier in the contest and 11 in the third, helping the Wildcats rally from a seven-point deficit to force a tie at 50 entering the final quarter. In those two periods, Reyes scored 21 of Whittier’s 36 points.

“We’ve had a lot of locker room conversations as a group, and I think (Reyes) has benefited from that,” Sipsey said. “I think his maturity is developing every time we play.”

While Reyes was supplying the offense, Sipsey was altering his defense to counter Pentucket big man Will Angelini. The 6-foot-6 senior had his way in the first half, scoring 21 of his team-high 26 points before intermission.

That performance helped Pentucket (3-3) lead by as many as nine early in the second quarter. The Sachems shot 53.6 percent (15 of 28) in the opening half.

But the Wildcats (7-0) came out in a 2-3 zone in the third quarter. An 11-5 run cut their deficit to one in the first three minutes. Whittier then closed out the period by scoring 11 of the final 14 points to tie the score.

“We played it a little bit last year, but we haven’t really had to play it that much this year,” Sipsey said of the zone. “But we had to today. I felt like we had to with their big guy getting the ball exactly where he wanted it every possession.”

Playing zone much of the second half, Whittier held Pentucket to 24 percent shooting (7 for 29). With the Sachems converting only one of their first nine field-goal attempts in the fourth quarter, the Wildcats took their first lead since late in the first period on a driving layup by Marck Galva with 3:37 remaining provided a 55-53 margin. Whittier grabbed its largest lead with 1:19 left when a pair of Gio Gomez free throws made it 61-55.

“We were able to go to the zone and make a difference,” Sipsey said. “Without giving away too many secrets, I’d love to mix up defenses: go to a 1-3-1 trap, go to our 2-3 zone … go man-to-man.

“But our bread and butter is our man-to-man, and you saw that the last five minutes. I said it in a timeout ‘This is the time when our man-to-man is going to win us a game,’ and it did. We were literally changing it every two possessions, and our kids did great recognizing it.”