Maplewood gets rare W at PV

RICH KELLY
Star Beacon

December 17, 2008 03:13 am

— ANDOVER TOWNSHIP — The Maplewood Rockets parlayed a 12-2 run to open the second period and break a tie with the Pymatuning Valley Lakers and then held on for dear life the rest of the way as PV rallied but fell just short, 60-56, Tuesday night.
The defeat is the first home loss for the Lakers in more than three years.
“Any time you beat PV on their floor, you’ve done something special,” Maplewood coach Matt Urcheck said. “The other teams we faced so far this year didn’t have PV’s size, so it was important to establish our inside presence at both ends of the floor, stop Andrew Smith, who’s been a demon lately, and try to get them into foul trouble.
“We did all three, and that is what carried us tonight.”
Balanced scoring also was a big help, with a quartet of Rockets (5-0, 5-0) hitting double digits in the scorebook.
Sean Zekkour led the way with 15 points, and his 17 rebounds and four blocked shots helped control the paint. Alex Daneyko added 13, including nine-of-12 from the charity stripe, Luke Orth had 11 points, and Tom Bottorff added 10, including a perfect four-of-four from the line.
The Lakers (3-1, 2-1) did get into foul trouble early, and the run to start the second quarter was fueled by an eight-of-10 performance from the line for the Rockets.
In seeing the long home winning skein end, there were no excuses from PV coach Jeremy Huber.
“We knew they’d double up on Andrew,” he said. “That was their game plan, and they executed it perfectly. We didn’t hit free throws when we had a chance in the second half (1 of 10), and we had some turnovers at inopportune times, especially late in the game. We had our chances to win, but just didn’t get it done. We’ll just go back to work tomorrow to try to get better.
“We’ll have some close games this year, but we’ll be a better team because of them.”
Garrett Drnek tallied 13 of his team-high 17 points in the first half for PV, and Jon York tallied 16, with 10 of those in the second half.
After cutting what had been a 10-point lead for the Rockets to just a deuce in the fourth quarter with less than 10 seconds to play, 58-56, on a 3-pointer from York, the Lakers threw the ball away in the offensive end with 2.9 seconds left, Daneyko hit a pair of free throws and the upset was secure for Maplewood.

Kelly is a freelance writer from Jefferson.