Yavneh defeated First Baptist Academy of Dallas 77-45 Tuesday night. The win improves the Bulldogs season record to 14-3.
Yavneh, back at home after a long week in Baltimore Tuesday, awoke with a 25-3 run that spanned two quarters to dispatch an old TAPPS 3A rival. The game was a nice bounce back for a group that seemed to run out of gas Saturday night after an encouraging stretch at the Weiner Tournament in Maryland. One concerning theme from the tournament was broken right off the opening tap as it was the Bulldogs and not their opponents who scored mere seconds into the game on this occasion. Jonah Eber, playing his first Texas basketball in about a month, found cohort Tyler C Winton for a quick scoop layup before the Saints even got off the bus. Mason Schwaber would establish himself very early in this game with a pair of field goals right off the bat. An easy tip follow with contact and a perfect out-of-bounds feed from Jason Prager gave the impression that it would be one of those nights where a team simply had no chance against the 6’8 and growing Senior post. Ben Rael continued his hot shooting with an early jumper to establish a 10-4 lead but Senior Chris Curry had been through too many battles with Yavneh to not be ready for a response. The armed and very dangerous shooting guard for the Saints was just beginning his 25-point masterpiece with 6 straight points to knot the game at 10-10. On Saturday night the Bulldogs missed shot after shot early in the game and dug themselves a hole that was tricky to recover from. Those same shots may have been building houses around the rim 1366 miles away in DFW Tuesday but this time the masonry held up as Schwaber was a first period vacuum. First Baptist could not keep Schwaber from putting back misses and that kept the home team afloat until they could eventually catch fire in this basketball game. With the game tied at 13-13, Junior transfer Avery Levy climbed a tree to pick off a pass in the full court chase and rifled a pass to Eber for a soft, accurate finish at the rim. Curry tied the game at 13-13 and one last time at 15-15 before the Bulldogs had quite enough with the trading of baskets. The epic run started with a simple post to post pass from Schwaber to Noah Ohayon for a 17-15 advantage. For what seemed like the 13th time already, Schwaber deposited another Yavneh miss into the basket to secure a 19-15 edge through one period of play, his 8th and 9th points on the night. The energy would pick up in earnest for the Bulldogs to start the second period as a Prager roll to the basket with the flip shot finish built a 6-point lead. Elisha Klein darted a great pass to Ohayon, who finished inside the basket on the most thunderous post move of the Sophomore’s career to date. Levy made it a 10-0 spurt with a transition helping hand to Hillel Baynash, who finished on the dash. Winton muscled a second chance basket into the hoop and Klein provided his usual energy off the bench with a steal to rebounding bounce-back finish at the cup. Eber, recognizing the Schwaber mismatch, threw some great passes that turned this run into a rout in no time flat. The helper that doubled the Saints score at 36-18 and made it a 21-3 outburst was probably the most demoralizing. FBA had their whole team in the paint but the pass sailed high in the air and Mount Mason simply finished over what looked like a busy Middle School lunch room just after 12pm Central for another easy finish. A Reece Parker steal through Eber to Simcha Malina accounted for a great Tri-Senior boomerang connection for a 38-18 edge. The 40-18 halftime score came courtesy of the 25-3 run stretching the end of the first and second periods of play. Shooting, rebounding, and ball security advantages that were significant turned a close game at 15-15 into a stampede. The defensive intensity behind 15 forced turnovers and just 3 points allowed in that segment of time was much too much for the Saints to handle.
The Bulldogs continued to fly high to begin the third period of play as Winton and Eber connected quickly. Prager’s steal and finish followed by a Rael coast to coast waltz to the rim with protection from any defense courtesy of his 3D glasses kept the energy at a high level. FBA had little interest in chasing down Bulldog players on their way to the basket after even more steals and when they did it seemed to just add on a point to the scoring. On one Winton steal, it honestly seemed like the Senior guard was enjoying music on allegedly imaginary headphones before a McBuckets finish with contact and a subsequent free throw. In fact, that play was a bit of history as it started the first ever Back-To-Back AND ONE finishes by opposing players wearing #3 on consecutive possessions within 20 seconds. Meanwhile, Eber continued to pad his assist total by craftily floating high passes to Schwaber where he couldn’t help but catch and finish. Nik Krasovitsky also got in on that act, setting up Schwaber for a 59-29 lead late in the third quarter. The growing constituency of the Avery Levy fan club are all well aware of the calculated risks that have made the Junior the talk of Texas High School basketball this Fall. But every once in a while, brAvery makes an appearance and a home run sideline pass to AIR Simcha Malina for a slightly acrobatic finish may have been the final dagger to this contest. Baynash finished the third period with a steal/assist to Klein as Yavneh began their coast to the final buzzer. Reece Parker scored on a baseline floater and took a charge while Eber completed a multi-rebound possession with a great finish for a 71-36 advantage. Rael added a punishing finish at the rim courtesy of yet another Elisha Klein breakup, who was extremely active in this game defensively. The lead would reach 40 points on a Parker to Treynash bank triple for a 77-37 margin. The final 8 points went to the Saints as Curry used a great beginning and an even better ending to score the majority of his game-high 25 points. The Bulldogs, however, with their 45 rebounds (21 offensive) and 29 forced turnovers survived 2/20 three point shooting and 5/11 free throw darts in the win. Mason Schwaber completed a dominant Double-Double with 21 points/11 rebounds. Jason Prager added 11 points and 4 steals, while the Ben Rael/Tyler Winton combo netted 15 more points. Jonah Eber’s 6 points came as a package deal with 8 rebounds and 6 critical assists. 11 different players scored points for the Red-and-Black in total.
Yavneh (14-3) still has a chance to get to 15 wins before 2019 comes to a conclusion. Pantego Christian Academy will make a visit to the SRC Thursday for the final game before the Bulldogs begin their district schedule in January. PCA plays in 4A TAPPS and will be a great final test and tune-up prior to what the entire region hopes will be another run to the State Final 4 and beyond for this group.
The Kennel Report, now in its 16th season, is written by…
Zack Pollack M&M
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