Yavneh defeated Poetry Christian 52-35 Thursday night. The win improves the Bulldogs record to 16-7.
After playing a murderous schedule to begin 2012, Yavneh dominated a game from start to finish for the first time in a long time Thursday. Not only did key players get some necessary rest but a host of reserves showed off what they might be able to do to help the team during its late season run. The Bulldogs were able to front run real early simply by building on their success from Tuesday against Commerce. Senior Captain Jordan Prescott continued to dish out assist after assist once again mostly to ever-rising Sophomore Itai Guttman. After appearing on several episodes of Unsolved Mysteries during the first part of the season, Guttman had his fifth consecutive solid outing. Poetry had no answer for stealth-like precision in the paint to the tune of a 12-5 start. Senior Captain Jake Greif also delivered once again with a trampoline inducing head fake that opened up a driving layup with a foul. Sophomore Jason Epstein came off the bench to have his career best half of varsity basketball. Epstein found Prescott cutting backdoor with a missile pass that had eyes. The smallest player on the court (and it was not even close) also gulped two big offensive rebounds to complete a 26-8 first half for Yavneh. Guttman scored 12 first half points on 6/7 shooting and the rout was on. At times the Bulldogs were so dominant that they nearly led by 20 points with 10 careless turnovers.
The strong game afforded Yavneh the opportunity to experiment with different combinations that they might need down the stretch. The game really could have gotten out of hand if not for the continued charity work of the Bulldogs with 13 more turnovers in the second half for an alarming 23 total. Amidst the giveaways were some really solid contributions. Sophomore Sam Kleinman learned that his role of X-Man factors a little bit better by scoring points, which is more easily achieved by actually shooting the ball. Kleinman had 9 points on three perfect field goal attempts and a free throw. Classmate Adam Steinbrecher also shot the ball well going 3/5 for 7 points with a trio of rebounds. Itai Guttman turned passer in the second half, notching 4 assists and 2 straight to put away the game at 42-21. One of those was a give-and-go clearly drawn up in the Guttman living room as he found younger brother Ori cutting to the basket. Ori actually out-rebounded his older brother with 6 to go along with 4 steals, 2 assists, and a block. Their stat lines indicate some kind of identity crisis but nevertheless a big help to the Yavneh cause on this night. All available players played in the wire to wire victory. The older Guttman led all scorers with 14 points. Despite seeing only limited action, Jordan Prescott was able to add five more to the Yavneh all-time assists career record which makes 16 in much less than two full games.
Yavneh (16-7) must now prepare for a road heavy week with two games in foreign environments. Sherman’s Texoma Christian is first up Tuesday, which should provide an interesting challenge. Texoma Christian has been up and down this year after a deep run into the TAPPS playoffs last season. They came out of nowhere to catch fire late in the season a year ago and there is no reason to think that they will not be ready for this highly anticipated match up for both teams.
The Kennel Report, now in its eighth season, is written by…
Zack Pollack M&M
TL-BW