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Deer Valley boys take 2nd at Horizon Invitational
They can score with just about anybody but Deer Valley boys basketball coach John Fellens' Christmas wish list has defense at the top as the 2007 portion of the Skyhawks season comes to a close.
On Saturday the Skyhawks fell in the finals of the Horizon Basketball Invitational losing to the host Huskies 83-75 in the championship game of the eight-team tourney.
Over the three day event the Skyhawks scored 251 points, good for 83 points per game, but gave up 253 points.
“Obviously we’re giving up way too many points,” Fellens said Thursday following their first round win a 97-96 thriller over Shadow Mountain. “We’re off until Jan. 8 so we’re going to get in maybe 10 practices to look at what we can do to improve defensively. Maybe we do more fronting of the post. I’m not sure at this point, but I know we’re capable of playing much better defensively.”
The tournament opener saw the Skyhawks (6-7) at their best and worst as they built a 24 point second quarter lead only to see it vanish during a second half in which they gave up 57 points to the Matadors.
For the first 16 minutes of basketball Deer Valley largely kept Shadow Mountain to long perimeter jumpers. The results were often long rebounds, outlet passes and layups for the Glendale team, which saw its lead balloon to 44-20 lead during a 14-4 second quarter spurt.
The run was keyed by senior guard Kory Willis, who finished the game with 19 points including eight straight during the run.
Fellens, though, said his team let down after building the commanding lead.
“It seemed like we started settling too much for jumpers,” he said.
With freshman point guard Matyre Demarco and Austin Graff combining for 15 points in the second quarter Shadow Mountain went to the locker room trailing only by 11 despite giving up 50 points in the first half to the Skyhawks.
The run to close the second quarter carried over into the second half as Shadow Mountain put 32 points on the board in the third quarter.
After scoring nine points in the first half Shadow Mountain rode Graff to 36 second half points including 20 in the third quarter taking advantage of the senior’s low-post skills. The 6-foot-4 forward put on a show with an array of turn ins, up and under moves and even a turnaround jumper to abuse the Skyhawks interior big men.
“You don’t see a lot of true post players like that,” Fellens said. “He was ridiculous. He’s really strong.”
Deer Valley maintained a lead though as they put 25 points on the board in the quarter to take a 75-71 lead into the fourth quarter.
While Graff was brutalizing Deer Valley in the paint Skyhawks junior Marcus Ruppel (6-foot-7) did damage both inside and out on his way to a 32 point night, making 13-of-24 attempts from the field.
Shadow Mountain wouldn’t go away though. An up and under move by Graff made it a two point game at the 4:30 mark of the fourth quarter.
Junior point guard Robert Wozny said he and his teammates remained confident.
“There big guy was just overpowering us and we let them back in the game because our shooting cooled off, but we’ve been in a lot of close games so we don’t panic,” said the junior who made all three of his attempts in scoring seven points.
There resolve would be put to the test as Ruppel picked up his fourth foul at the 2:09 mark while trying to slow Graff forcing Fellens to try a different defender on the Shadow Mountain big man.
Moments later Shadow Mountain, which had trailed by 24, took their first lead when Graff, who made 16-of-21 attempts (76%) scored and was fouled. When the senior made the free throw attempt the score was 89-86 with 1:39 remaining.
“That may have been the best thing for us, them taking the lead,” Fellens said. “It seemed to wake us up.”
Junior Mirza Sabic, responded down the stretch with a pair of driving runners down the lane the first of which turned into a three-point play that knotted the score at 89 while the second one gave Deer Valley a 95-94 lead with 14 seconds remaining.
Sabic finished with 24 points including seven in the fourth quarter.
The see-saw battle was far from over as a pair of free throws from freshman Martyre Demarco, who finished with 21 points, made it Shadow Mountain’s lead 96-95.
After getting the ball over half court Fellens called for time to set up what would be the game-winning play.
“We have three different options off that play,” Fellens explained in describing the sideline out of bounds play from just inside half court. “On the first we’re looking for Mirza in the post. It’s rare that many teams are going to have a 6-foot-5 guard that can matchup with him. We’d gone to that one a couple times already during the game so I didn’t think that would be there. The second is just to get it in to Marcus on the wing and see if he can’t make a play either driving or with a perimeter shot.”
With the clock at 9.5 seconds the ball would come into Ruppel. Instead of taking the shot himself the Skyhawks forward would find option No. 3 on the play, in this case Wozny, cutting backdoor on the weakside.
Ruppel drilled a pinpoint over the head pass through traffic to the junior who was alone underneath the basket.
“It’s one of our best plays,” Wozny said. “The other team has to focus on Marcus and Mirza and that’s what allowed me to be all alone. Marcus made a great pass and I just had to make the layup.”
Wozny’s effort was good with just more than five seconds showing on the game clock.
Without a timeout Shadow Mountain raced the ball up the left sideline and got off a decent look at a three pointer, but when Matt Small’s effort from approximately 30 feet hit the backboard then clicked off the rim the Skyhawks had survived to advance in the tournament.
In other tournament action involving Northwest Valley teams the Centennial Coyotes (2-6) got their first wins of the season, going 2-1 to take the consolation championship. After opening with a loss to Chaparral, 84-78, the Coyotes responded with wins over Cactus Shadows and Marcos de Niza.
The tournament also marked the season debut of the Coyotes full roster. Before the season started Centennial coach Brian Hoffner anticipated that the addition of the football players may constitute six of his top eight players. Without his full squad the Coyotes, who made the 5A Div-II state semifinals last year, opened the season with a 0-5 mark.
