Coram Deo defeated Yavneh 64-51 Tuesday evening to drop the Bulldogs record to 11–10.
The game was quite possibly over seconds after Coram Deo’s James Grizzle put on a dunking exhibition during pre-game warm-ups Tuesday night. Yavneh came out flat and intimidated, and had every reason to quit. To their credit, the Bulldogs battled back but would run out of gas towards the midpoint of the fourth quarter. Coram Deo’s pressed Yavneh early with their bigger and seemingly more athletic team. It was 11-0 after 3 minutes. David Naxon’s 2 free throws 4 minutes into the game were Yavneh’s first points from an area of the court that seemed to be the most prosperous during the game. Coram Deo used the 3 point line to bury Yavneh early, shooting 4/7 in the first quarter. In all, they held a 29-12 lead after a quarter. 9 first half Yavneh turnovers led to a game high lead of 35-15 minutes into the second quarter. Yavneh looked absolutely finished. However, a mix of combinations that included rarely used reserves Bradley Alhadef and Aviv Schor turned the game. Alhadef hustled his way to a season-high 19 minutes while Schor put up a career high 8 points and took a huge charge. Their performances, along with David Naxon’s aggressiveness to the hoop and Erez Krengel’s 6 steal/6 rebound performance at the other end, trimmed the lead to 39-28 at the half. There was still work to be done. The Bulldogs fought for the entire third quarter, cutting the lead to as few as 8 points. Every time they got the game close, however, Coram Deo would seize control with offensive rebounding and in turn second/third chance points. Yavneh was out rebounded 38-25 in all. The lead would get as low as 51-44 with 6:05 to play in the game but again the rebounding and inside play of Caleb Geer would do the Bulldogs in. Much of the late rebounding troubles may very well have been contributed to the team running out of a gas after engineering a long and tiring comeback attempt. The lead was again 62-48 with 3:22 to go and would never get closer than the final score of 64-51. Encouraging performances by several Yavneh players may provide some much needed momentum to the team as they enter what may be their most critical week of the regular season. Naxon finished with 20 points to lead Yavneh. Coram Deo’s Caleb Geer tallied a game-high 26 points and Josh Hicks added 19. Yavneh left multiple points on the court, missing several lay-ups and close jumpers, and shooting just 16-25 from the free throw line. Also of note, the opposing bench was charged with a technical foul for the second straight Yavneh home game.
Yavneh(11-10) will travel to Houston for the David A. Yaffee zol Memorial Tournament starting on Thursday. It will be a 5 team round robin tournament with the top two teams advancing to the Sunday final. Participants will include Houston’s Beren Academy and Emery Weiner, as well as Ramaz and HAFTR from New York. Ramaz, New York City’s Yeshiva League leader, is 27-3 on the year and features the highly publicized Zachary Rosenberg.