Yavneh defeated Dallas Academy 42-38 Wednesday evening to improve the Bulldogs record to a perfect 4-0.
For the second straight night, the Yavneh Bulldogs tried to give their first loss of the young season to an opponent. For the second straight night, their opponent just would not take it. Yavneh defeated Dallas Academy on Wednesday evening 42-38 to keep alive their best start to a season since 1999-2000 and in doing so still has never lost to successful private outfit Dallas Academy. David Naxon led the way with 17 points on just 5-18 shooting but the offensive story was Amitai Scott, who outshot the Dallas Academy zone all night. Scott finished with 14 points on 5-11 shooting, including 4-8 from three-point range. It was a career-high for Scott as a starter. The very talented Ryan Lands chipped in 20 to lead Dallas Academy. Yavneh once again came out firing early in the game, leading 14-4 after a quarter of play. Naxon again hit early three-pointers, going 3-3 in the opening frame. As many players and fans complained of cool temperatures in the gym, the two teams made the building feel even cooler over the next two quarters. Dallas Academy cut the lead to as few as 5 in the second quarter until a wild sequence to end the half. With 10 seconds left, Coach Baruch called a play to get Josh Abrams an open 3, which he promptly sank. With the remaining 4 seconds, Ryan Lands calmly drilled a near-half court three to end the half with DA trailing just 21 16. The coaches smiled as Baruch joked with the Dallas Academy coach, “Just like you drew it up Coach”, as the two teams entered their locker rooms. The second half crawled along with Yavneh maintaining a 10-point lead into the fourth quarter. Dallas Academy would make their run in the fourth, finally cutting the lead to 35-33 with 2:49 to go. Josh Abrams and Sam Pulitzer shot 6-11 during the last two minutes from the foul line to close out the game. Trailing by 3 at 38-35 with under a minute to go, Dallas Academy could not hit the big shot and eventually fell behind by two possessions again with under 10 seconds left. Also of note. Sam Pulitzer took 3 charges from Jeff Wingfield of Dallas Academy to render the big man mostly ineffective for much of the evening.
The Bulldogs (4-0) will try to tie their best start from 1999 with a win Monday night against Sunset Public High School of the DISD.