NCN LAX/BASKETBALL BLOG

Freelancer Mike Sabini was at the Ossining-Peekskill contest at Peekskill on Jan. 20. This is his report.
By Mike Sabini

Peekskill senior guard Daquan Brickhouse entered Wednesday’s game against visiting Ossining with 993 career points.

And it didn’t take long for him to reach the 1,000-point milestone. Brickhouse joined the exclusive club early in the second quarter, hitting the front-end of two free throws.

“It brought back flashbacks last year with Ralph (Watts), he got his 1,000-point on the free-throw line also,” Brickhouse said. “I didn’t even expect it coming. I thought someone was injured when they blew the horn. In my mind, I wanted to ask coach how far away I was from getting 1,000 points but I never got to asking him.

“So it shocked me. I’m proud of myself but I couldn’t do it for the four years I have been here without my teammates. They guided me, they helped me. They brought me from a boy to a man. They helped me get to where I am today.”

They also helped Brickhouse, who scored a game-high 32 points, pull out a 79-73 victory against Ossining (8-3). The win extended Peekskill’s home winning streak to 52 games. The Red Devils’ last home loss was Dec. 11, 2004 against Spring Valley.

Ossining got off to a hot start, leading 22 -17 at the end of the first quarter.

“We started off good then we slacked off in the second quarter,” Ossining Co-Head Coach Khalid Sales said. “We made some key mistakes down the stretch. We played hard but I thought we could have played a lot better. We were shooting the ball really well (in the first quarter). We got some good shooters on our team. We spread the court and shot the ball.”

Two of those shooters were Cameron Davidov (18 points) and Keon Ervin (15 points). Davidov made six-three pointers and Ervin five.

“Cameron is a good shooter but we got several, Keon as well,” Sales said. “Both of them can flat out shoot the ball. So they did a good job of getting us shots, but in the end we didn’t get it done.”

Peekskill (7-4), which is 7-0 against Section 1 teams, righted the ship in the second quarter, outscoring Ossining 25-9 to take a 42-31 halftime lead. Brickhouse scored 11 in the second, while teammate Kenny Bradshaw registered nine of his 22 points.

But Ossining crept back in the game in the third quarter, outscoring Peekskill 27-19 to cut the deficit to 61-58 heading into the fourth.

“Ossining is an excellent shooting team,” Peekskill Head Coach Lou Panzanaro said. “I thought we had control of the game at halftime. After we got down, we came back and took the lead by 11. We really wanted to close out that third quarter but we couldn’t close out their shooters. They did a great job of shooting the basketball.”

Ossining sophomore Randy Stephens led the third-quarter comeback, scoring eight of his 13 points in the third.

“Randy is a good player and he could be even better,” Sales said. “He got out and helped us get back in the game. We didn’t get over the hump but Randy did a good job getting us back in the game.”

Peekskill answered in the beginning of the fourth quarter. Baskets by Aaron Dimmie, Bradshaw and Sean Smythe (11 points) put Peekskill up 67-58.

According to Panzanaro, it was imperative to get off to a strong start in the final quarter.

“We certainly didn’t want them to take the lead and have to fight from behind,” Panzanaro said. “We wanted to be ahead so we could spread the floor and get Daquan to the foul line. We eventually did that at the end.”

Ossining continued to fight hard, however, Brickhouse made six of nine foul shots in the fourth to seal the game.