Here’s tonight’s recap of Mount Vernon’s win over New Rochelle:
MOUNT VERNON — The crowd was large and began to stir as the play grew chippier by the second. Instead of gliding from baseline to baseline amid the cheers, Mount Vernon found itself rolling around on the court with New Rochelle chasing loose balls.
Not surprisingly, the Knights failed to score the first four-plus minutes and were stuck in a tie game at halftime.
“I think we got a little too caught up in the rivalry as opposed to (playing) good basketball to watch,” Mount Vernon coach Bob Cimmino said.
In the second half, a few contentious moments fueled the crowd, which, in turn, seemed to finally spark the listless Knights. They pulled ahead and pulled away from New Rochelle, winning 60-47 to earn a season sweep over their chief rival.
”We wanted to tell them that’s we’re Mount Vernon and we’re a good team,” said senior point guard Josh Doughty, who had a game-high 22 points and hit five 3-pointers. “If you want to get chippy, we can get chippy and play good defense. That’s what happened.”
Indeed, the Knights (16-1) exposed New Rochelle’s primary weakness by forcing 29 turnovers. It allowed them to overcome a halftime rebounding deficit that had as much to do with the absence of foul-plagued forward Brandon Martin as it did with the effort of Huguenot seniors Joe Clarke (pictured right) and Khalil Edney.
“We definitely picked it up in the second half when I came in,” said Martin, who had all 10 of his points in the second half and grabbed five rebounds. “That’s what I was trying to do: Rebound, hit the offensive and defensive boards.”
Clarke and Edney’s offensive rebounding helped even the game 22-22 at the break. Senior guard Jamal Lewis scored seven points off the bench in the first quarter for Mount Vernon in his return from a knee injury.
In the second half, it was Martin’s return, Doughty’s shooting and the play of junior Devonte Banner (11 points, pictured above) that helped quicken the pace and stretch the lead to double digits.
“We knew we could play better than we did in the first half,” Banner said. “We just had to play better defense.”
New Rochelle responded one last time, cutting its deficit to six early in the fourth quarter. Its momentum dissipated when Clarke (17 points, 8 rebounds) threw down a thunderous dunk over a defender. Instead of trimming the deficit further, the basket was waived off for charging. The gap only widened with the Huguenots’ inability to protect the ball.
“Every game we’ve lost, we’ve had over 20 turnovers,” said New Rochelle coach Rasaun Young, whose team fell to 8-9. “That’s not taking care of the ball and we have to do a better job than that.”
21 Comments
LISTEN,I’M NOT GOING TO SAY IT AGAIN;
MOUNT V RULES READ IT AND WEEP,NICE JOB FELLAS
I’m neither a MV or New Ro fan. I just wanted to see a good rivalry game. That was the worst officiated game I ever saw. Section 1 should be ashamed because those officials were just awful. It was a hard game to watch. Bad calls with wrong players getting the foul. Embarrassing.
Shame you are absolutely correct!! I could not believe how terrible those officials were! Just unbelievable
Haywood,
Were the refs that bad? New Ro is down this year..shame only good gamed MTV gets..Blowing them out twice..not good news for the rest of the cream puffs..white plains just about beat mamaroneck..enough said..
NEW RO CAN STILL BE DANGEROUS IN PLAYOFFS,as long as they stay away from MV side of bracket
STEP FAN,
I WAS WORKING
Have to agree with the criticism of the Ref’s.. Crowd almost lost it,
The offensive foul called on Clarks dunk was horrible, they called Josh’s number on a foul when he was on the other side of the court. I could not believe what I saw. I can see if there were two players trying to strip a defender, but he was 20 feet away and they called his number only because he and Boogie are the same size. He had to come off the court with a fourth phantom foul. There were plenty of other outrageous calls, but maybe the best was on an inbound pass form MV on the baseline the Ref had a perfect view of the ball. It was a bounce pass that bounced 12 inches out of bounds before it was touched by the MV player who had an easy layup. Because it was in front of the MV bench he let it go.
Where the game almost spun out of control was after Josh pressured one of the guards into an offensive foul, the Ref turned his back on the players to run to the scores table and make the call and the NR kid bounced the ball off Josh’s head. This is what may have what sparked MV, but it could have resulted in a brawl. Not good. I was ok with him not being thrown out of the game because he was a turnover machine. If either of those two guys do a game at County Center you better hope its for the girls.
WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOW,SMH
The refs were that bad!! But I actually thought that when Clark dunk he did ram a knee in the mt Vernon defenders chest who just stood there to take the foul. Just my opinion and when boogs strip the ball and they called josh for a foul, it was a clean strip. It was kind of funny the way it was almost dead in the gym until the refs crazy calls
There is a lot of talk about comparisons of sect 1 teams and teams in the chsaa. To me that conversation is out of line and tiring. When it comes to the referees, the chsaa has a clear advantage. The New Ro, MV game was all about the referees. It was a real shame to see two people ruin a contest like that. It really got hard to watch the game. If the officials flipped a coin on each call, they would have gotten the calls closer to being the correct. Section 1 should review their officials. There is enough tensions on the court in a packed house. The officials literally cause disturbances on the court and it the stands. I just never witnessed something like that. Sad
J
The Clark dunk could have gone either way but I think a no call at that point was what should have happened.
I will have to agree the Ref’s did add some excitement to the game, but could you iamgine the scenerio if the call on Josh was the 5th foul in a close playoff game. OMG
these were amature mistakes these guys made, no way no how should they have been in the gym for a MV/NR game. Could you imagine assigning Abbott and Costello for a Lincoln/B&G game in Brooklyn? Dead men walking
Cadet,
I’ve seen a few refs promptly leave the PK gym after bad showings. I guess they were out of the door as soon as the clock hit 0:00. Crazy and surprised it hasn’t happened yet.
States,
game started with very little police presence but I think a call went out when NR cut it to 6 late in the game as a precaution. lol
Worst game ever. Not even close. It could have caused a problem on the court and in the stands. Section 1 must not have any oversite.
States,
lol, sad but true statements in the jungle.
Shame,
Sadly seems that was. We’re in touch economic times but hoops is not meant to be played with 2 refs. I’ve seen refs make horrible calls from their blind spot all yr that would have been mitigated if there was another ref to help.
CLARKE DUNK WAS A BAD CALL!!... THE REF’S WHERE VERY BAD… NEW RO GUARDS HAD MAJOR PROBLEM HANDLING MOUNT VERNON PRESSURE!... #CLARKE IS A BEAST!!!
PRINCE,
YOU HAVE BEEN ON THE BASKETBALL BLOG ALOT,CHANGING GEARS?
HAYWOOD February 7th, 2013 at 12:35 pm
PRINCE,
YOU HAVE BEEN ON THE BASKETBALL BLOG ALOT,CHANGING GEARS?
HAYWOOD.. JUST A LIL!!...
Prince,
GLAD TO HAVE YOU ABOARD,DON’T BE A STRANGER,LLLLLLOOOOOLLLLL
to all you wooden arm chair officials keep your remarks to yourself i was at the game and i thought the crew did a good job. secondly there is a class for new officials in april we would love to have you join our board because it seems you all have the experience to do the job so take the challenge and join but when you do let us know that you are the the guys with the big mouths
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