The Ramaz School of New York defeated Yavneh 46-37 in the Third Place Game at The Joseph and Florence Weiner Memorial Tournament in Baltimore, Maryland Saturday night. The loss drops the Bulldogs season record to 9-7.
A tournament of frustration in the form of missed free throws, horrific three point shooting, and missed layups culminated with possibly the most futile game of all in conceding Third Place to Ramaz Saturday evening. 15 more missed free throws, 2/20 colder than ice shooting from beyond the land of the three, and a game in which Yavneh connected on only 9 total shots from the field was the icing on the cake for a What Could Have Been 4 days in Baltimore. For the tournament the Bulldogs missed 61 absolutely free-of-charge cracks at a point and connected on just 14 of 82 shots from behind the three point arc. Those numbers will beat very few teams and even the effective at times Yavneh pressure defense was not able to overcome those self inflicted wounds against the better teams in the tournament. The Third Place game started with extreme lethargy on both sides but the Bulldogs never really seemed to snap out of it while Ramaz was almost contest to sleep walk their way to victory. It took Yavneh almost 4 minutes to record a field goal when finally Junior Jonathan Ochstein dished a great wrap-around pass to Noah Weiss accounting instantly for half of the team’s first period offense. An 8-4 Ramaz lead after a single period of play was the furthest of cries from the electricity of Friday’s Semifinal games. Similar to the first meeting on Thursday, Ramaz slowed the Bulldogs with a patient zone defense that dared to do something a spent group from Dallas simply could not do in Baltimore….shoot the basketball. Brick after brick and more missed bunnies than a post-Passover celebration, Yavneh continued to show 4 points on their side of the ledger more than halfway through the second quarter. Meanwhile, Sammy Merkin and Allie Haber had no choice but to finally will some of their shots into the basket. A 6-0 crawl over 5:02 of game action put Ramaz into an almost insurmountable 14-4 advantage. The Bulldogs rolled player after player off of their bench only to see the same lack of energy, passion, and will to fight. A single field goal and one measly free throw in the second period left the Yavneh mountain at 22-7 to climb for halftime.
The Bulldogs got a long-awaited Noah to Noah connection when Rubinstein fed Weiss on a nice exchange but that was the only offense over the first 4 minutes of the third quarter as Ramaz continued to slowly add on to a now 26-9 drubbing. Ramaz was begging to let their Dallas counterparts back into the game by not once but twice fouling a three point shooter (again Yavneh was 2/20 from outside all game long) and then subsequently drawing a technical foul by giving the officials classic New York looks/faces. However, the Bulldogs connected on just 6 of those 10 resulting free throws, with one being taken off the board just because the un-official scorers felt like it. Through all of that Ramaz actually maintained a now 19 point lead, biggest of the game. For all the things that just could not and would not motivate this team on this night, and for all the combinations that just would not work, it was the one point scoring error that energized the Yavneh contingency. Fortunately and finally, that energy included 5 players on the court. A rarely used combination that included Sophomore Zach Epstein and Senior Grant Prengler leading the way lead a spirited 15-0 explosion out of nowhere. Steve Levine was once again turning opponents over but this group was finishing at the other end for a change and even made some free throws. Prengler connected on one of the 2 three pointers for the game during this spurt that chiseled the Ramaz advantage to 31-27 midway through the fourth quarter. Two defensive breakdowns provided a critical juncture where Ramaz was able to gather itself and steady a 35-27 lead. The Bulldogs continued to battle but when they needed to keep offensive momentum the most it once again was just not there. Noah Rubinstein buried the other triple to keep contact at 44-35 but it was too little too late with only 1:29 to play. The theme of the 7 game tournament for the Bulldogs was its struggles on offense, specifically with open layups, three pointers, and of course free throws. 35% field goals and 17% three pointers left almost no margin for defensive error in these games and it really needs to go no further than a final margin of 9 points with 15 missed FREE throws. Steve Levine (2nd team All-Tournament selection) led the team with 11 points and 7 rebounds while Noah Weiss added 8 points. Grant Prengler chipped in another 6 points while Noah Rubinstein and Jonathan Ochstein combined for 11 rebounds. Rubinstein led the charge to a very low turnover night with none, an 180 degree turn-around from his previous struggles while Ochstein provided valuable post minutes throughout the games which he will likely build on heading into district play. Also of note, Senior Ori Guttman was selected as part of the First Team All-Tournament squad.
Yavneh (9-7) will chalk up the 7 games of valuable experience and work on eliminating the self-inflicted mistakes that are clearly costing them basketball games. A clean slate awaits the Bulldogs upon their arrival back to Texas as an intense District schedule awaits starting Thursday. Playing in a now 9-team district, 16 opportunities will be the ultimate measuring stick for how this 2014-15 team will go down in history. Will the ever-improving nucleus of what really could be a great basketball team mature on the fly and eliminate the costly mistakes? Will this group defend the legacy of a District championship knowing that every team is gunning for what they have? Can a group of could be great right now rally together with each other to achieve great things in 2015?
ONLY TIME WILL TELL!!!
The Kennel Report, now in its eleventh season, has been written by…
Zack Pollack M&M
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