Bears’ First-Half Spurt Dooms Croton in the Quarterfinals
The Briarcliff boys’ basketball team probably can’t play much better than it did over the first five minutes of the second quarter last Wednesday evening.
A 17-0 spurt that actually began with Jack Reish’s buzzer-beating 3-pointer to end the opening period enabled the Bears to overcome a seven-point deficit and gain firm command on the way to a 67-53 quarterfinal victory over Croton-Harmon in the Section 1, Class B playoffs.
“Yeah, whenever you go on a 17-0 run, you’ve got a lot of things going well,” said Bears coach Cody Moffett soon after his defending sectional champions had punched their ticket for another trip to the Westchester County Center. “But, for us, and I’m sure for most coaches, more impressive about the 17-0 run is the defense and intensity and giving up zero points.”
Reish, the standout senior guard who had been plagued by a late-season ankle sprain, finished the night with a team-high 22 points, highlighted by his top of the key 3-pointer in the midst of the top-seeded Bears’ big run that made him the sixth player in school history to reach the 1000-point plateau for his career.
“What injury?” joked Moffett when asked about his star’s ability to play at full throttle in the playoffs. “What injury? He’s ready. That’s all that matters.”
The visiting Tigers, seeded ninth, used an early 9-0 run of their own to build a 12-8 lead. When Rory Parker and freshman Sean Macarchuk each made jump shots in the final minute of the first quarter, Croton’s lead grew to 19-12. But the period ended with Reish, who had been limited to just two points until then, connecting on his just-in-time 3-pointer that provided a hint of things to come.
By the time Croton scored its first points of the second quarter, nearly five minutes in, the Bears had already built a 10-point lead. But Briarcliff was still trailing by a point as Reish rose just beyond the top of the key with 5:45 left in the half and drained the 3-pointer that gave him 1000 career points and put the Bears ahead to stay.
“More than what he means to the team, I’ll say what he means to the program,” said Moffett. “I mean, he’s been here as long as I’ve been here as far as a varsity coach. We’ve been attached at the hip. So it’s been great. He’s our leader.”
The Bears followed Reish’s lead after his milestone basket and soon got a fast-break lefty layup by Taijon Tribble, a put-back of his own miss by Miles Jones and a flip in the lane from Jack Ryan. Reish then capped the 17-0 blitz with a pullup jumper with 3:03 remaining in the first half.
When Croton answered with a pair of 3-pointers by Charlie Goldberg, who matched Reish with 22 points, and one from Macarchuk, Reish closed the half with another trey that gave the Bears a 34-28 lead. According to Moffett, the big first-half turnaround began once the Bears began paying more attention to detail.
“We realized where their strengths were and we just tried to take away their strengths and make somebody else do something,” he said. “For a few minutes, we had lapses. When you’ve got guys that can make shots and make great plays, when you have a lapse, they took advantage of that. Fortunately, we were able to just take a deep breath and remember what we’re trying to focus on, and then from there we did a solid job.”
The third quarter began with Ryan tossing a lob pass to Spencer McCann for a layup and then Reish hitting on a pullup jumper near the foul line that restored the Bears’ double-digit lead. A layup by Reish over the top of the Croton press with three minutes left in the period, followed soon by a fast-break layup from Jones extended Briarcliff’s margin to 46-31.
Briarcliff was still leading by 11 points as the fourth quarter began, but Goldberg’s fifth 3-pointer of the night with 2:45 on the clock moved the Tigers to within 56-49. Half a minute later, though, Reish answered with a 3-point basket from the right corner on the Bears’ third opportunity of their possession.
Ryan, who wound up with 13 points, one less than McCann, all but sealed the outcome when he spun in the lane with 1:15 to go and made a fallaway jumper that gave the Bears a 61-51 cushion.
“It’s a great feeling,” said Moffett about earning another trip to White Plains. “But we’re still not done, still got a lot left to work on and try to get better at and try to continue playing Bears basketball. For us, it’s all about defense. If we play great defense, for the most part, we’ll give ourselves a fighting chance.”
Andy is a sports editor at Examiner Media, covering seven high schools in the mid-Westchester region with a notebook and camera. He began there in the fall of 2007 following 15 years as a candid photographer for the largest school picture company in the tri-state area.
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