Class AA semifinal: Poughkeepsie vs. North Rockland
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- February
- 27
Update, 6:23: Poughkeepsie wins 47-42. Davyone Whitaker stole the inbounds with 10 seconds left and went down the floor for clinching dunk (maybe) to seal it.
Update, 6:21 p.m.: Another North Rockland timeout. 10 seconds left.
Update, 6:20 p.m.: Video is being worked on. Sorry! Poughkeepsie up 45-42 with 19.2 seconds left. McLaurin hit a jumper. North Rockland ball in a timeout.
Update, 6:18: Poughkeepsie leads 43-42 with 40.7 seconds left. PK ball.
Update, 5:58 p.m.: Poughkeepsie up 35-33 after three quarters. Going to come down to the wire once again this week.
Updated, 5:43 p.m.: Forgot to include this before. Jeff Jackson has 12 points and John Perez has eight for North Rockland. Yes, that’s all 20.
Updated, 5:36 p.m.: Can you remember a team looking so sluggish and somehow leading at the half? North Rockland is doing it right now, leading 20-19 at halftime over Poughkeepsie.
John Perez gave North Rockland its only lead of the game, scoring off a put-back with 2 seconds left in the quarter to go ahead.
Poughkeepsie has to shaking its heads in the locker room right now. It did a good job defensively, got John Perez and Jorge Cruz in foul trouble and is losing at the break.
Crazy game so far. Won’t be shocked up if Poughkeepsie comes out in the third quarter and puts up a big numbers. Oops, just jinxed them!
Update, 5:18 p.m.: Poughkeepsie leads 13-4 after the first quarter. As bad as it was for North Rockland, which didn’t score until there was 1:43 left in the quarter, it could have been far worse. To only be down nine to a team as good as Poughkeepsie is lucky. Brandon James has seven points for Poughkeepsie.
Update, 4:48 p.m.: The game will be tipping off in five minutes. If you want to watch the game live, click over to our Mogulus broadcast.
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on Friday, February 27th, 2009 at 4:48 pm by Kevin Devaney Jr..
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Is this working for anyone yet? I keep getting video of the girls game that was just played. Any tips, thanks in advance
Its up now. Sorry its just that phrase “5 minutess” or “2 seconds” But someone forgot to tell No Rock the game time bc they havent scored in the first 4 minutes
LoL, both team came out the gate nervous and frantic… The pace is being dictated now, the young men are settling down… Should be a dousy
North Rockland has some speedsters… They cna get out and fly at times…
the video stopped working right at crunch time!
Terrible time for the video to stop working!
Great it would stop working at the best part…
This is abolutely ridiculous that at the last minute the video feed cuts!
Kevin,
How did the game go at the end. I see you say Pok won 47-42, but the last we saw on the video feed was 42-39 North Rockland and Poughkeepsie was looking terrible. What did Pok do, North Rockland not do the final couple minutes?
Hoops I was at the game. In a nutshell, North Rockland decided to slow up the tempo and change their offense. They were trying to kill time and run a four corners type set with an isolation for #23. This ruined them. POK was too fast up top and two times down the court with under two minutes, they had shot clock violations. Whitaker hit a few big shot down the stretch and that was it.
North Rockland really only had one true scoring threat. They played hard and were in zone the whole game. Whitaker was cold, so the zone worked great. The other kids aren’t to solid outside shooters. The big kid for NR had a nice game as well. The better team won, but they really struggled.
MV may be able to exploit them down low. Whitaker is going to be a handful, but if he is off for a large part of the game( like he was tonight) they will be in trouble.
HRS,
Well said… Cant put it any better than that, NR controlled the pace and it was a gift and a curse… When PK waso ut running they controlled the pace for a little bit… NR did to PK what they will have to do to MV to even think about survivng. PK took tons of dumb shots instead of passing around the zone, however, NR’s zone was almost bullet proof for most of the game… Good coaching strategy, great team… PK-NR are both young teams and should meet up for another classic next year… I tip my hat of to them, sadly someone had to lose and I’m glad my Pioneers will see MV for the last chip of this decade… They started this decade with a classic, hopefully yhey can end this one off with one… Hopefully PK wont be as shaky as they were today… I wish NR the best of luck in the off season and hope they gel…
No. Rockland knew better than to run, but the PK defense was the best display of the 4-
each’s O and D. PK did not shoot well, from the field or the line, but it was their D that held No R to extended scoring droughts. The first 6 minutes of the game and the last 4, No R didnt score. PK had about 9-10 team blocks, and while we havent seen the last 4 minutes yet-they werent letting them score, or get off any shot. In advance of the finals and given the matchup vs MV, I would prefer the D to outplay the O today. A good winI was also at the game… I pretty much have to agree with HRs and statesman’s takes on the game, although I’d add that the poor shooting by both teams may have been due to depth perception problems arising from playing in the County Center as opposed to a standard high school gym. Still, PK deserves credit for fighting through adversity; I was concerned about how the Pioneers would react to trailing a team with tons of momentum at the half. Once again, though, Whitaker came up huge for PK even though he seemed off his game. North Rockland has earned my respect for hanging tough to the bitter end; I look forward to a potential rematch next year between the Raiders and the Pioneers..
I’m happy about PK’s win and Whitaker’s final play was a nice touch. I’m not happy, though, with the pace of the game. This was not, in my opinion, a fun game to watch. Both teams seemed uncertain and neither was able to get into a groove. Also, at times, it seemed like slow-motion. What happened to PK’s run-and-gun game? I kept waiting for them to break loose, but it didn’t happen. North Rockland’s defense may have prevented PK from playing it’s usual game, but I felt that PK didn’t really try to use its usual fast-paced formula. Despite all of this, however, congratulations to PK for winning and to North Rockland for giving them a hard time. NR should have a bright future with all of these young players.
As predicted a Poughkeepsie victory, much to the chagrin of the Westchester / Rockland fans. But it was ugly.
One disgruntled fan pointed out that the over a week layoff for PK definitely played a part. But I’m not buying that completely.
I felt though PK won, they were outcoached for 29 minutes. I was impressed with Rockland’s execution on offense and defense. And though I disagree with Devaney and the Journal News’ consistent downstate bias, his point on how solid Rockland is is valid.
They’re not just football anymore.
Perez and Jackson are stars, and are only Juniors. And the two sophmores Martinez and especially the athletic Smith make next year very promising for NR. I came away a real believer in North Rockland Basketball. Man, if they hit a shot or two early this game could have been easily for the Raiders.
Only a coaching faux pax by NR (they started taking the air out of the ball with under 4 minutes left) and Choo Choo Whitaker imposing his will on the game and taking over for the Pioneers gave PK the victory.
I am a PK fan but considering the game started out 9-0 PK and North Rockland almost went scoreless for the first quarter, the Raiders controlled the tempo, handled the press fairly well, and from the second quarter on played better than PK. Period.
NR is well coached, but I think being in the County Center got to them a bit at the end of the game. The NR coach hurt them I think by taking their offensive aggression away at the end. Then they started to turn the ball over a bit in crunch time. And again, Whitaker asserted his will above all other players on the game at the end.
Poughkeepsie played a bit scared – aside from James early and McLaurin’s runner to end it, no one wanted to shoot the ball, until Whitaker in the second half. The passivity surprised me a bit. They had better become much more aggressive offensively before Sunday, or the Knights will run them out of the gym.
Last, PK survived a scare, James went down hard, but it was cramps. Hope he is 110% for the Mighty Knights, who also struggled a bit in victory. But in the end, win and move on. I hope PK battles from tip, and with more experience from last year’s final, gives Mt. Vernon a run for their money and plays a competitive game.
North Rockland out coached…. He stalled and Pok kept their composure. We had the game…..
The game had nothing to do with coaching. I thought the Pok coach did a great job of keeping his kids focused during timeouts and they switched defenses when they need to. The NR coach had a great game plan but lost. A W is a W.
Game
have to disagree on your coaching comment. I went to that game not rooting for either team and the NR coaches were a ball of confussion at crunch time. it appeared like the head coach was asking his assistants what to tell the kids at each time out. Not a sign of confidence to me. Just my observation. yea, a great game plan that should have resulted in a win but you can’t use 2 minutes of the clock and not hit the rim. bad move trying to burn the clock with 4 minutes left.
I have to agee with Spacecadet, the NR coach had a 3 point lead with 3 minutes to go and he didnt attack,put no pressure on Pok to play defense just dribbled the ball on the perimeter till there was under 10 seconds to go on the clock then tried to go 1 on 1 and got a shot clock violation. Then did the same thing on the next possession. They had Pok on the ropes and let them off. Have to give Pok their props for not panicking and Whitaker is a beast if they beat MV it will be because he has a big day,not sure Pok can beat MV without him tearing it up and he’s more then capable.
It was scary how the 2 semi’s were mirror images of each other. I thought both MV and Pok were at least 15 points better then their opponents and both were losing with 4 minutes to go in the game and both sucked it up in the final minutes to pull it out. I’m sure Sunday will be a great game and if either team wins by more then 5 I will be suprised.
States, Space very good points. NR had a great game plan until the end. I was sitting there in shock. You had POK for 28 minutes playing a style that was going to equate to victory. Then in the last four you change. NR didn’t ahve the ball handlers to pull off a stall/4 corners type set. POK blew that up.
In the end, I am glad POK won. It sets up a great game for the gold ball. NR has a nice bright future if they step up the scheduling and get “game tested” They need to be in that situation against a tam like POK throughout the year to succeed. POK was and it helped them prevail…and Whitaker!
BTW for those of you at the game. In the last minute when Whiatker stole the ball..he was going to throw it down on basically the whole NR team but took off to early and got fouled.. That would have been a bring the house down moment if he got that off!
HRs
it would have brought the house down, he actually jumped over the kids head and the ball ended up sort of bewteen his legs. He may have beeb just protecting himself from going over on his head, but.. and I say but… if he was trying to go thru his legs and dunk. OMG
NR better take that team on the road and get into a couple of good tournaments, it would be a big plus for the future.
Man I wish he got that off. That would have been one of he best dunks ever!! Once he broke, I was up in my seat with that anxious look….You are so right about him jumping over that kid! His verticle was shown off on that play!
HRs
yea would have been up there near the top in dunks if it was what he was trying to do. For now I have to think about Jomo Balfor and the trailing Ben Gorden on a 2 on none. Full house of MV and WP fans with about 10 seconds left and MV up by maybe 6 points. I have a feeling you witnessed Jomo throwing it off the glass and Ben slamming it down. That brought down the house, priceless…...
I love the people that say a guy was out coached. At this level its about the kids performing in key spots and coaches make adjustments during the game. I think sometimes we over analyze the role of a coach. Players must make plays. The coach must use timeouts effectively and look to motivate. However, out coached for 29 minutes? I think you can say one team out played the other for 29 minutes but still inside of 3 minutes it does come down to coaching. From what I saw the Pok players made great defensive stops, combined with NR slowing down too soon, and Pok having the best player on the floor in whitaker. Coaching was secondary. Why does Pok and Mt Vernon win? They have excellent players and good coaches. But Bob Cimmino is not catching the lob.