Fox Lane Hangs On to Defeat the Quakers

Even though he lost his entire starting lineup to graduation from last year’s first Fox Lane team in almost a decade to reach the County Center, coach Chris Violante was still expecting big things this season.

Just not this big.

“I knew we were gonna be good,” said Violante shortly after last Wednesday afternoon’s home game against Horace Greeley. “I didn’t think we’d be six and one.”

But that’s just where the Foxes stood after barely hanging on to defeat the Quakers 42-40 in a game they never led until midway through the third quarter. Jordan Pasetsky’s layup with 20 seconds remaining provided the winning margin and then his defense at the other end of the floor on a potential game-tying jump shot helped preserve the Fox Lane lead just before the final buzzer.

“We found a way,” said Violante. “Yeah, we’ll take it. A win’s a win. You know, Greeley’s Greeley and it doesn’t matter how good they are or how bad we are or how good we are and how bad they are. It’s gonna be a war, no matter what. Records are thrown out the window against them.”

The Quakers, who had dropped their only two previous games, quickly jumped out to a 6-0 lead, getting a pair of baskets by Teddy Graves sandwiched around a Harrison Brown layup. But James Morales connected on a couple of 3-pointers and Nick Bonura added another one as the Foxes battled back to within 12-9 after one quarter.

A fast break that finished with Brown  dunking the ball two minutes into the second quarter extended the Greeley lead to seven points. But neither team managed much offense the rest of the half and the Quakers took a 20-15 lead into the locker room.

“We struggled,” conceded Violante, whose team only shot four free throws, each one in the first half, and missed them all. “We didn’t shoot it well. I thought we played great defense. We gave up 20 points. We took three charges, all in the first half. I mean, how can I complain? I just wish we made some shots, but that will come and it did in the second half. We made some big shots.”

The second half began with Graves, who along with Brown was the game’s high scorer with 12 points, making a 10-foot jumper from the right baseline. But the Foxes closed to within two points following a trey from Bonura and then a reverse layup by Will Quaranta.

After two free throws by Brown, the Foxes’ Morales connected on a 3-pointer from right of the key. When Will Paul soon  hoisted another shot from beyond the arc and the ball bounced on the rim and then dropped through the net, the Foxes had their first lead of the day at 26-24.

Successive baskets by Brown and Ryan Lubarsky enabled the Quakers to regain the advantage before Owen Azrak tied the game with a drive through the lane. Bonura’s right-side 3-pointer with 1:35 left in the third quarter then gave the Foxes the lead for good.  Another Azrak layup provided Fox Lane with a 33-30 lead heading to the final period.

The Foxes had used four 3-pointers in the third quarter to seize the lead and Greeley coach Dave Fernandes, for one, wasn’t happy about it.

“In the third quarter, we were playing the matchup (zone) still, and our wings were dropping down to try to help, which they’re not supposed to,” he said. “So we’ve got our bigs down low, and our wings are dropping, and they kicked the ball out and they hit a couple 3s on us. Uncontested 3s. Fox Lane can shoot, so the best you could do is keep a hand up. But you can’t give ’em wide open shots.”

The Foxes got an early lift in the fourth quarter when senior guard Carlito Carvalho, seeing his first action of the season, made a 3-pointer. But Graves answered with back-to-back layups to narrow the Greeley deficit to two points. Carvalho drove the right baseline for a layup and Andrew Redhead added an 18-foot jumper. The Fox Lane lead was 40-34 with just 2:45 left on the clock, but the game was far from over.

That’s because the Quakers answered with three consecutive buckets, the first by Greg Handler and the next two by Matt Xie, to tie the game with 47 seconds remaining. That set the stage for the Foxes’ Pasetsky to make the game-deciding layup nearly a half minute later. He then managed to get a hand in the face of Xie, whose fallaway jumper from the foul line bounced off the rim and was rebounded in traffic by Pasetsky as the buzzer sounded.

“We had a play set up, so I was a little annoyed,” said Fernandes about the last Quaker possession. “Instead of getting the ball back into Harrison’s hands, we didn’t do it. So then we were helter-skelter. I didn’t want that. I was looking to run the play like we did before. That’s where you’ve gotta have a little discipline.”

Still, Fernandes did see some things he liked from his Quakers, who managed to finish the week with their first victory of the season on Saturday night as Brown scored 25 points against visiting Yorktown.

“Much better, played harder on defense, played together,” he said about the effort against the Foxes. “That’s what I see with this team. We’re under construction. We’re gonna peak later, so we get better every game.”

Meanwhile, the Foxes’ Violante was just relieved to eke out a narrow victory after illness had ravaged his team earlier in the week. “We had eight guys at practice yesterday,” he said. “We had five guys sick. Our starting center, Tommy Palmerton, wasn’t here today. We’re not really healthy right now and we need to get healthy.”

The Foxes, who improved to 7-1 after edging Rye on the road on Friday, don’t play again for another 10 days. So Violante will have plenty of time to savor his team’s surprisingly strong start this year.

“I’m ecstatic right now,” he said. “And it’s all from the kids and their hard work and buying in. They have a will to win and it shows every time we step on the floor.”