Red Devils Survive Scare From Sailors On Senior Night
February 5th, 2010 by Isaac CassFreelancer Mike Sabini was at the Hen Hud-Peekskill contest at Peekskill on Feb. 3. This is his report.
By Mike Sabini
Peekskill (11-5) held a ceremony to honor its senior players and cheerleaders before its contest against visiting Hendrick Hudson in its last regular season home game on Feb. 2.
At first, however, it appeared the Sailors would be doing the celebrating.
Hen Hud (9-7), powered by 17 first-half points from Dylan Stewart, led Peekskill 31-30 at halftime but eventually succumbed to the Red Devils’ pressure and fell, 72-53, extending Peekskill’s home winning streak to 55 games.
Despite Stewart’s hot start, he could only manage four second-half points for a team-high 21 points.
“Dylan was playing the way he is capable of playing,” Hen Hud Head Coach Steve Purcigliotti said. “Dylan has had a very good year for us, especially over the last month of the season. Give him all the credit in the world, he was awesome.”
Hen Hud earned that halftime lead by finding the open man, taking good shots, moving the basketball and reacting superbly to whatever defense the Red Devils were throwing at them, according to Purcigliotti.
The momentum started to turn when Peekskill forward Sean Smythe, who scored 11 points, hit a 3-pointer with just seven seconds left in the third quarter that put the Red Devils up 48-44.
“That three was huge at the end of the third,” Peekskill Head Coach Lou Panzanaro said. “We said to him (Smythe) you haven’t been shooting well but just keep shooting the basketball and it’s going to come. Shooters go into slumps and different things happen but you can’t shy away from it. You have to go get it again and I thought he did a good job tonight.”
Guard Daquan Brickhouse did a great job for Peekskill, tallying a game-high 26 points. A jumper by Brickhouse was the first of 14 straight Red Devils points to start the fourth quarter.
Purcigliotti called a few time outs to try and stop Peekskill’s momentum, but it was to no avail.
“Our problem was that once we broke the press, we just got ahead of ourselves and weren’t taking good shots,” Purcigliotti said. “That’s why I called a couple of timeouts. I told the team we are doing a good job of breaking their press but you are rushing shots. That allowed Peekskill to start running and breaking and when you allow it to do that, it turns into typical Peekskill basketball.”
Joining Brickhouse and Smythe in that typical style of Peekskill hoops were Kenny Bradshaw (13 points), Shaine Carter (nine), Tyler Daniel and Curtis Lamar (four each), Jamel Cultherberson (three) and Kyree Hull (two).
With Brickhouse, Bradshaw, Smythe, Lamar and Aaron Dimmie having played their last regular season home game, Panzanaro was reflective.
“We had five seniors and we started all five of them,” Panzanaro said. “It’s a sad time of year to see them play their last regular season home game. They mean a lot. By the time they are seniors they have been through this a couple of times, in Daquan’s case four years. You just hope they have success in whatever they do after this.”
Despite the loss, Hen Hud is still enjoying its best season since 2006, when the Sailors went 12-9 and qualified for the sectionals.
Outside of Stewart, Mike Tandy (12 points), TJ Olesczuk (six), Kyle Altman (five), Casey Peterson (three), Ronan Callagy, Nick Rizk and Bennett Zink (two points apiece) also contributed.
Posted in Boys' basketball | No Comments »

