Physical style of play curbs shooting woes for Spartans

GREAT BARRINGTON – If anyone has seen high school boys’ basketball across this state, they would know that Berkshire County is by far the most physical, with the referees in this county often choosing to keep their whistles in their pocket.

As for the Monument Mountain Spartans, the physical play and aggressive style pressure defense at times causes poor shooting, as was the case in their most recent home game versus Hoosac.

Coach Mike Saporito watched as his team failed to convert a single three-pointer and shot nearly 30 percent, as the Hurricanes knocked down six three-pointers in beating the Spartans last Friday night, 49-34.

“The poor shooting tonight was our Achilles’ heel,” Saporito said. “We are not a great shooting team but we are a decent shooting team, and tonight’s offensive performance was as lousy as I’ve seen it.”

Trailing 35-22, after three quarters, the Spartans had only scored six, eight and eight points in each previous quarter, while the Hurricanes utilized a full-court press and a trapping half-court defense to force numerous Spartan turnovers and keep Monument guards Brandon Curtin (zero points) and Cam Powell (two points) and forwards Taylor White (six points) and Peter Oggiani (eight points) out of the lane.

“Give Coach Robinson a lot of credit; his teams play great defense, but even with their defense we had a lot of open looks,” Saporito said. “We had open looks at three-point land, we had open looks in lay-up land – the ball wouldn’t go in the basket tonight.”

A key piece of the puzzle missing for the Spartans was Jason Laramee, who suffered a sprained ankle in practice. Without Laramee, the Spartans were unable to stop 6’4” junior Hoosac forward Trevor Alibozek, who had 15 points inside.

The Hurricanes also padded their 21-14 halftime lead in the third quarter with some spot-up three-pointers by senior guard Corey Puccio, who knocked down four treys on the night for 14 points.

“We did a good job on their screen-roll offense,” Saporito said. “[But] they would swing the ball opposite, and we didn’t help out the helper over there – Puccio hit some big threes at some big times.”

The Spartans made a run in the fourth quarter as Bobby Kinne (14 points) opened the quarter with an and-one to cut the lead to 35-24. Oggiani then hit a floater in the lane to cut the lead to nine points, but the Spartans wouldn’t get any closer.

Monument missed on its next five attempts after forcing several turnovers and garnering a handful of offensive rebounds.

Hoosac’s Matt Braman answered the short Spartan rally with an and-one of his own, to put the Hurricanes up 38-26 with five minutes left.

“We didn’t handle the ball well,” Saporito said. “We had a lot of turnovers, so there were a lot of shots that could have been taken.”

Braman finished off the Spartans in the final minute with a three from the top of the key to put the Hurricanes up 46-28, ending the Spartans’ short one-game home winning streak.

“They had a great trapping scheme at both the half-court and full-court level – and their mixing it up caused our guards difficulty at the end of the day,” Saporito said.

Shooting under extreme physical stress is never easy, but somehow Saporito will have to get his team’s shooting confidence back on track if Monument is going to have a shot at the post-season.

“It’s hard for guys at this age to stay mentally tough but when things don’t go your way you have to stay positive,” Saporito said. “The great players still take shots and they know the next one is going in – and I think we lost confidence there.”

Posted by Tim Davis on December 27, 2012. Filed under High School Sports,Sports. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry