February 7, 2008 Issue                                       

©2007 The Chestnut Hill Local

Patriots steal victory from Devils
by Justin Goldman

CHA junior  Gary Lawrence heads down court. (Photos by Pack Jr.)

For both Germantown Academy and Chestnut Hill Academy, it was a tale of two halves. In the first half of last Tuesday's (Jan. 29) pivotal basketball match, both teams had trouble stopping the other on offense which led to a 30-30 tie at the break.  But in the third quarter, GA came out focused and determined and opened up an eight-point lead behind the hot shooting of guard Joe Hill and forward Jeff Holton to propel the Patriots to a 69-51 win. The victory gives GA sole possession of first place in the Inter-Ac with three games left to play.

Though CHA had been playing well offensively, that was not the best sign for head coach Bill Dooley moving into the second half.

"The score at the half concerned me because it was too high for us," Dooley said. "We don't have as much offensive firepower as they do, so it is much more important for us to get stops on the defensive end which we could not do with any sort of consistency."

At the 6:10 mark of the fourth period, Holton nailed a three from the right wing to give the Patriots a 52-41 lead that all but sealed the contest.

"Coaches always say the first four minutes of the second half are really crucial and really important, especially in a tie game," Hill said. "We really came out with energy in the first four minutes and tried to take it to them then."

Hill struggled some in the first half, not getting the looks for some of his patented three-point shots, but after halftime, it seemed like he was a different player. Hill scored ten points in the third period, a period in which the Patriots outscored the Blue Devils 17-11.

"We did a great job executing our offense in the second half," he said. "We really couldn't get stops in the first half, but we built some momentum after we got a couple in the second half. On offense, guys found me when I was open and I let it fly and luckily the shots went down."

CHA (15-6, 4-2 in league play) had some defensive breakdowns in the second period which led to some wide open three point looks for Hill and Holton.

"They got a lot of open shots off of penetrate and kick plays," Dooley said. "But our defensive rotations were not nearly as good as they needed to be. What it came down to was we just could not stop them on the defensive end at all"

The first time these two teams played, it was tough for Blue Devil leading scorer Gary Lawrence to get anything going offensively, scoring just  11 points on 2-of-6 shots from the field. In this contest Lawrence established himself offensively in the first half, scoring 13 points on  4-of-5 shooting.

"Gary's movement was very good in the first half," Dooley said. "He picked his spots very well."

GA made it a point to try to be more physical with Lawrence in the second half, and that plan was executed to perfection. He only scored six in the second half, on just 1-of-3 shots from the floor.

"Tim (McCarty) and Eric (Yuschak) did a great job on Gary," Hill said. "Tim really played physical defense  which started to fluster Gary a little bit which is what Timmy does."

The Patriots went on a 22-5 spanning the second and third quarters which led to the lead getting to 58-43 before GA inserted its reserves.

Cameron Ayers of the Patriots led all scorers with 22 points while Holton added 21 and Hill added 15. For CHA, Lawrence led with 19 points while ex-GA player Mike Rhoads put in 16.

Both of these teams are back in action this week with GA traveling to Episcopal on Friday and hosting Penn Charter on Saturday. The Blue Devils come back to host Penn Charter and Episcopal on Friday and Saturday.