East makes history with 65-55 win over Pleasantville

The Olympic-Cape challenge took place once again on Saturday February 11 at St. Augustine Prep as East took home their win number 17 on the year. This victory gave East their fifteenth straight win breaking the previous record of 14 straight wins set by the 1993-94 and 1998-99 squads.

The game started off very slow and very unusual for the Cougars. After winning the tipoff and scoring the first basket of the game, the Cougars looked like they were missing something, and that something was motivation. They had not shown up for this game and it showed it on the court as East started to slowly fall apart. Pleasantville went on a 12-3 run over the next two minutes and after another minute had the lead by two points when Coach Valore called his first timeout. It's very unusual to see Valore call a timeout in the first quarter so when he does, you know he is mad.

After the timeout, Pleasantville scored a quick three pointer followed by a Marc Schlessel ('12) three rounding out the first quarter 21-17 Pleasantville.

The second quarter was not much better. After a few interchanging baskets between both teams, East started to pick up their slack off of a Jesse Gold ('12) nice bounce pass to Jake Gurkin ('12) to make the Pleasantville lead 26-21. Dan Melleby ('11) then dished out one of his 8 assists of the game to CHris Santo ('11) who got an and-one opportunity but failed to convert on the free throw. East then got the ball back but turned it over resulting in a Pleasantville three to make the score 30-23. Santo then had turned it over for the fourth time in the quarter after just turning the ball over 11 times over the last eight games. At this point, Valore had had enough and did something he had never done before: take Santo out of the game. Justin DeJesus ('11) subbed in for Santo at the 4:37 mark in the second and surprisingly East started to perform a little better.

Schlessel connected on a three, which led to a followup three by the opponent in which Valore decided to put Santo back in, but this time for Gurkin. Another thing Valore does not do. After a few baskets by both teams and a timeout by Pleasantville, Gurkin went back in for Santo for another minute in which the half ended with a nine point lead for Pleasantville 37-28.

In the locker room, Valore was not happy. He had nothing to say to the team so he walked out leaving it up to the captains to turn the game around and keep the Cougars stellar season in track. Santo made a motivational speech which seemed to work as once East came back out to play, the played like a completely different team than the first half.

Melleby dished it out to Santo for a three point play followed by Gurkin making 1-2 from the line. East than went on an impressive 12-7 run over the next four minutes when they tied it up with just over a minute to play in the quarter.

On the next possession, Gold drew an intentional foul making one free throw to take a one point advantage. On the inbound following the free throws, Santo passed it to Gurkin for a layup giving East a three point lead at which point they never looked back. Gold forced a turnover and was fouled making his first free throw but missed the second ending the quarter with an East Lead of 48-44.

In the final quarter, East made shot after shot, but so did Pleasantville until the fouling started. In a span of two minutes they went from four fouls to the limit of 10 giving East the double bonus every time they were fouled for the rest of the game. East shot 22-28 from the line behind Santo's impressive 12-14 performance.

East won this game 65-55 behind a combined 50 points from Santo and Schlessel.

MVP goes to Chris Santo. Not just for his 30 point 15 rebound performance, but for his motivational speech during halftime that saved the Cougars' hopes for a victory that would make history in Valore's final season as a coach.

Stats:
Santo- 30 points, 15 rebounds 3 steals
Schlessel- 4-11 form three with 20 points, 3 rebounds
Gurkin- 12 rebounds and 7 points along with 4 blocked shots
Rose-4 assists
Melleby- 5 points, 5 rebounds and 8 assists
Gold- 4 assists


East finishes up their Olympic conference schedule this week against Washington Twp (2/15) and a tough Eastern team fresh off of an upset over St. Augustine (2/17)