Saturday night action in the New Breed Basketball Association, featured two winless teams squaring off and two undefeated teams also going at it at the Ronald Charles Gymnasium.
Legacy 86, Ujima 84
Legacy and Ujima put on an exciting show for a good crowd that came out on a rainy night to enjoy some local basketball. The two winless second-tier teams really went at each other, with a plethora of lead changes. In the end, with fatigue becoming a major issue, Legacy seemed to want it a little bit more and were able to come away with a hard-fought 86-84 victory. Sean Tutein led Legacy with a game-high 29 points, with 11 coming in the crucial fourth quarter. He was ably supported by Brandon Oreily with 28 points and Kalif Newton with 13. Deshawn Joseph’s 15 points led Ujima. Ronel Burke and Kareem Degrasse both had 12 points and Warren Brooks netted 10 in a losing cause.
Hoyas 85, Kings 59
In game two, a contest between undefeated teams, the defending champion Hoyas seemed to take a dispute with the Kings before tipoff, about who should be on which bench, personally. They came out in a man-to-man defense and went on to crush the Kings, 85-59, in a game that was not as close as the final score would indicate. The Hoyas enjoyed leadoff as many as 34 points in the fourth period.
After a tie score at nine in the first quarter, the champs closed the period on a 12-0 run to take a 21-9 lead, and they never looked back.
Hoyas coach Sammy Lee inserted five new players to start the second quarter, and the Kings were able to do a little better against this group, but still could get no closer than eight points. They did, however, win the period 24-22 to go into the locker room, at the half down by 10 at 43-33.
The Kings opened the third quarter on a 7-2 run to trim the lead to five at 45-40. It would be as close as they would get. The Hoyas responded with 13-0 run to quickly squash any hopes the Kings may have had and the lead was up to 18 at 58-40. The champs would go on to outscore the overmatched Kings 42-26 in the second half on their way to a punishing 85-59 victory.
“They (the Kings) got me upset with the bench thing and I wanted to show them who we are”, said Lee. “I also wanted to use this game to work my bench, get them in the game and work out some things in a game situation,” Lee continued.
All 12 Hoyas in uniform scored with three players getting into double figures. Darnell Hendrickson led the way with a team-high 15 points in two quarters, while teammates Quinton Guirty and Ramon Castillo netted 13 and 12 points respectively. For the Kings, it was Ronel Branch leading the way with a game-high 16 points, and Claudel Abraham dropped in 10.
