Fort Worth Bethesda Christian defeated Yavneh 59-47 Thursday night. The loss drops the Bulldogs record to 3-2.
For the second straight game Yavneh got mixed up in a contest where neither team was playing well. This time, however, the Bulldogs simply could not recover and saw their opponents flip the script and seize control after halftime. The game started with turnovers on both sides with Yavneh giving up the ball a pair of times in the opening minute. Junior Steve Levine found Senior Noah Weiss to deadlock the game at 2-2, and then moments later got a steal for a layup and the lead 4-2. Bethesda responded with a 10-2 spurt, fueled remarkably by a second 4 point play by a Yavneh opponent already this week. Senior Zak Schultz stopped the bleeding with a couple free throws awarded on a great strong drive to the basket. In fact, the final stages of the opening period belonged to Schultz and offered hope on this night. He grabbed two offensive rebounds on a key possession late in the quarter and then received a cross-court pass to bury an NBA-distance three ball at the buzzer. That shot trimmed the BCS lead to 14-13 and put momentum squarely on the Bulldog side after a sub-par 8 minutes to begin. Levine swiped another basketball to being the second period, resulting in a great Jonathan Ochstein find of Weiss. That play combined with a gutsy charge taken by Junior David Steinbrecher surged Yavneh into the lead once again at 20-19. The game remained close for the balance of the first half as the two teams both struggled in key areas. While defensive rebounding and ball security were atrocious on both sides, the flip side was a combined 19 turnovers and 19 offensive rebounds, with a differential of only 1 in each category. Steinbrecher hit a deep wing jumper off a great pass by Weiss but the two-headed monster of Bethesda’s Engulu and Caskey made enough shots to keep the home team in a slight lead. Sophomore Noah Rubinstein threw yet another dynamite pass to Weiss in the middle of the painted area to knot up the game once again at 24-24. When the smoke cleared from a first half in which both teams had their difficulties, BCS held a slim 26-24 advantage. They had out-shot the Bulldogs 37-29% with 2/10 three point shooting being a big part of the troubles for the visitors. The rebounding and turnover issues were on both sides but Yavneh had simply given away more with 7 point-blank misses in the paint. Weiss notched 8 points, 7 rebounds, and 4 steals in the first 16 minutes while Engulu led the way with 12 points for Bethesda.
As is typically the case, one team seized control out of halftime. Yavneh never seemed to recover while BCS partially righted the ship. A quick 7-2 run opened up a game-high 7 point lead for Bethesda, who put the clamps on any Bulldog scoring. Yavneh produced just 4 points over the third period’s first 4 minutes of play, un netting a 35-28 deficit. In search of answers and with nearly an entire lineup struggling, the Bulldogs turned to their pass producer Noah Rubinstein to actually shoot the ball. Ochstein found him in the corner for a ginormous triple that not only cut the lead to just 4 points but seemed to have woken up a whole new element of the Yavneh offensive attack. Rubinstein waited all of one possession to drill a second straight jumper from the opposite baseline, once again cutting the BCS lead to 4 points at 37-33. The problem, however, had become that the defense was yielding points at a far more rapid pace than the offense could keep up with. The Bethesda lead briefly grew to 8 points before Ori Guttman found Steinbrecher on the run to salvage the final seconds of the third quarter with a score of 41-35. That brief slice of momentum was all too brief for the Bulldogs to make a serious push. Ochstein drilled an elbow jumper to trim the lead to 4 points one final time but the 5-0 BCS run that followed essentially put the game away. As the margin reached double digits at 49-39 with 6:40 to play, Yavneh had time for one final response. Schultz secured a nifty steal and found Levine and the two reversed roles for another transition finish but the defense could not get back to back stops all half long. It was simply a matter of too many missed shots at one end and too many missed box outs at the other. The guards were often out of control and taking poor shots while the bigs disappeared for the second half altogether. Rubinstein collected many of his 7 offensive rebounds late in the game which was just as much a result of how horrendous the Bulldogs shooting was as anything else. 3/16 three point shooting represents a ton of wasted trips down the court and left the road team without a chance of any comeback in this game. The anti-climactic ending was frustrating in that Bethesda was essentially a team consisting of 2 mediocre scorers that are slightly above average at best. Engulu and Caskey did combine for 48 of the 59 points while Levine and Schultz led the Bulldogs with 9 points apiece. Noah Weiss chipped in 8 points and 9 rebounds but nearly all of that was in the first half. David Steinbrecher scored 6 while Noah Rubinstein had the 5 points to go along with 3 more assists and 8 rebounds.
Yavneh (3-2) gets to return home for a pair of games against 2 more successful Texas private school programs next week. Tuesday brings Cambridge, who has steadily been improving in recent years and should provide a good test. The Bulldogs will need to bounce back in several areas if they have designs on staying above .500 for the season. Having completed their first 3-game week of the season, Yavneh will need to learn and grow as they develop their true identity moving forward.
The Kennel Report, now in its eleventh season, has been written by…
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