The North Hills School defeated Yavneh 79-49 Thursday evening. The Bulldogs are now 3-1.
Any system or game plan is only as good as the sum of its working parts. Playing without last season’s leading scorer and rebounder proved to be too much for the run-and-gun Bulldogs to overcome on a night that the players did nearly everything wrong. Yavneh needed everyone else to contribute as star David Naxon missed his first game to the knee injury that he suffered Tuesday night. Unfortunately, nobody contributed. When the 30-point drumming was complete, Yavneh could reflect on their 24 costly turnovers, 5 for 34 three point shooting, and 6 of 17 free throw shooting. 29 missed threes and 11 missed free throws left way too many possessions on the table to salvage a calculated run during the game. The 24 turnovers were bad enough but they were deadly turnovers, many of them resulting in uncontested opportunities. The game started with an Erez Krengel 7-2 run. He was ultra-aggressive taking the ball to the basket with the absence of Naxon. When North Hills caught the Bulldogs at 16-5 with just minutes to go in the opening quarter, no one could have imagined that they had taken the lead for good. However, the Bulldogs would never lead again. With a 20-15 lead after the first stanza, North Hills would make one of 2 devastating opening runs of a quarter. A 16-3 spurt to start the second quarter put North Hills up by double digits to stay. They took advantage of multiple turnovers in the open floor t keep padding their lead with uncontested high percentage shots at the basket. Naxon was clearly missed as his unit proved ineffective for long stretches of these North Hills runs. The other unit seemed to press too hard and over-compensate for the other group, failing to execute with any success either. Krengel tallied a season-low 15 points but he and JUNIOR Bradley Alhadef led all Yavneh scorers with the 15 apiece. A Bulldog mini-run closed the lead to 13 at halftime but the wheels came off in the second half. A quick 10-0 run by North Hills put the game away. Yavneh did battle back with a 7-0 run of their own but 48-33 with 4:10 to play in the third quarter was as close as they would come. The turnovers continued to offset any offensive spark that Yavneh could generate. A 62-38 deficit after three quarters grew to a 30 point margin by game’s end. Brian Mbah, longtime nemesis Alykhan Rehmatullah, and speedster Tuan Doan all put up double digits for North Hills. Injuries are a major factor to a hobbled Yavneh team. In addition to the indefinite Naxon knee injury, Erez Krengel looked a step slow and clearly still is feeling back soreness.
Yavneh (3-1) will have a long weekend to regroup and prepare for longtime rival Temple Christian . Known to many simply as “The Green Team”, TC is an old district TAPPS foe that goes back far beyond Itzy Ribald vs. Jared Osbourne.
The Kennel Report is written by Zack Pollack