By Simon Chen
With only the cream of the crop in the division left, the Telecommunications Yellow Jackets, Midwood Hornets, and the Sheepshead Bay Sharks all played impressively in this week’s action. The Yellow Jackets and the Sharks went 3-0 while Midwood was 2-1 with that one loss coming against the Yellow Jackets. This week marked the second and final time that each team will face their divisional foe for the regular season unless a postseason match-up dictates that. The Yellow Jackets still continued to light up the scoreboard, led by their forward/center Nikita Davis, who scored an average of 30 points against this week’s three opponents. Also, this week marked Davis scoring a season high 34 points in Monday’s match up against divisional foe, Midwood. It was the play of Davis and his teammates that kept their undefeated record unblemished. But another record that went unblemished, but in the wrong direction, was Lafayette’s 0-12 record that also stayed intact. In the game of the week, the Telecommunications Yellow Jackets would hit the decade mark by edging second place Midwood for a second time. In the first go-around, the Yellow Jackets merely slipped by with a 67-66 victory at Telecommunications on November 29. Leading all scorers was Yellow Jackets’ center/forward Nikita Davis, as he lit up the Hornet defense by scoring a season high 34 points, pulling down 15 rebounds, and dishing out two assists. In the defeat, the Hornets’ Kavon Baker had 19 points, three assists, and three rebounds. The game started off with both squads tied at 15 at the end of first quarter but the Hornets dealt a severe blow to the Yellow Jackets that has never been done before, outscoring them 22-17 in a quarter. Midwood would lead the game 37-32 at the half. The Yellow Jackets didn’t allow a mere five point deficit put the kibosh on a undefeated season. They came roaring back by scoring 42 of their 74 points in the second half, outlasting the Hornets. With the win, the Yellow Jackets improved their undefeated record to 10-0 while Midwood went to 8-2. On November 29, the Fort Hamilton Tigers outright destroyed the Tilden Blue Devils, 97-48. Back then, a pair of Tiger guards, Nabiel Bader and Tarik Alassari, scored 21 each in the victory. The duo would be back again to haunt the Blue Devils, as each guard scored 18 to lift the Tigers past the Blue Devils at Tilden. Guard Nabiel Bader scored 18 points, pulled down three rebounds, and dished out nine assists. The other impressive performance was by guard Tarik Alassari, who added 18 points, five rebounds, and two assists. Despite leading all scorers, Blue Devils forward/guard Ashton Pascall was beaten again by Fort Hamilton. In their previous match up, Pascall was only limited to 13 points, five rebounds, and an assist. But the division’s leading scorer ended his afternoon with 27 points, 15 rebounds, and three assists. With the victory, the Tigers improved to 6-4 while the Blue Devils were dropped to 5-5. Since beating New Utrecht on December 15, the Blue Devils haven’t been impressive at all, going 0-5 in their past five games including this afternoon’s match up. The Sheepshead Bay Sharks were emotionally depleted after losing 68-59 to first place Telecommunications at home on January 4, it was crucial that they would bounce back against an also emotionally depleted Erasmus Hall team. This they would, as Sharks’ guard Tyrell Faulcon led the way with 16 points, seven rebounds, and two assists. Another key performance was by forward Ahkeem Scott, who netted 12 points and two rebounds on the afternoon. At halftime, Erasmus Hall was only down by one to the Sharks, 28-27. But that quickly changed, as the Sharks’ offense would lift the team to victory by putting up 16-fourth quarter points. Besides, this wasn’t the only time that the Sharks edged Erasmus. They beat them in the season opener on November 29 at Erasmus Hall in a 90-48 thumping of the Dutchmen. The Sharks, with the win, has a 8-3 record, good for second in the division while Erasmus falls to a disappointing 1-9 on the season. It is extremely rare to put the words of, “FDR Cougars” and “25 point-third quarter” in the same sentence but it was used in this game against the New Utrecht Utes. Despite scoring 25, having their guard/forward Tomasz Kurpiewski scoring 21, and guard Steven Sharrers scoring 20, it still wouldn’t be enough as they were edged by the Utes at New Utrecht. Kurpiewski finished his afternoon with 12 rebounds and four assists. While Sharrers was also impressive by adding a rebounds and a pair of assists. On the other side of the coin, Utes’ guard Amr Red Salem, has only averaged 11.36 points per game prior to this game, he would lead all scorers in this one by notching 24 points, six rebounds, and three assists to power his Utes’ squad. The always impressive Utes’ guard Ismael Gonzalez checked in with 21 points, six rebounds, and eight assists of his own. As the Utes improved to 6-4, the Cougars were demoted to a 3-7 record and stills second-to-last place in the division. Madison Knights’ forward Caddem St. Aubyn has only averaged 5.20 points per game but it was his team leading 17 that spearheaded a Knights victory over the depressing Patriots at Madison. Supporting Aubyn’s most impressive performance of the season was center/forward Javon Jean, who added 15 points, 12 rebounds, and an assist of his own. The lone bright spot in the defeat was Patriots’ guard/forward Brendon Henry’s 16 points, 15 rebounds, and two assists, but of course, for the tenth consecutive time, it wouldn’t be enough to erase the zero in the win column. As always, the loss sets the Patriots back to a 0-10 record while the Knights improved to 3-7. Entering the second half with a 6-point lead, the Fort Hamilton Tigers weren’t able to put the Sheepshead Bay Sharks away as they loose on the road at Sheepshead Bay. The Tigers held the Sharks to a 9-point first quarter while slicing the defense for 20 points in the quarter. In the second quarter, that Tiger dominance started to give way as they allowed 15-second quarter while only countering with 10 of their own. But it was the third quarter that the Sharks started to chomp at the bit by scoring 20 to tie the game at 44. In the fourth quarter, the Sharks would take control as they poured on 23 more to slaughter the Tigers en route to victory. Leading the Sharks was guard Eric Williams, who scored 23 points, snagging down four rebounds, and dealt out an assist. Despite leading all scorers and scoring a season high 23 points, Tigers’ guard Tarik Alassari finished his afternoon by contributing four rebounds and three assists. In the victory, the Sharks improved their record to 9-2, tied for second place with the Midwood Hornets, who are also 9-2 after beating Lafayette. With the loss, Fort Hamilton drops to 6-5 on the calendar. The Yellow Jackets absolutely made it look easy, just way too easy. The Yellow Jackets destroyed the Erasmus Hall Dutchmen by 39 at Telecommunications. Jackets’ forward/center Nikita Davis, led all scorers with 24 points and 10 rebounds. Supporting Davis was forward Rasak Bello, who contributed 19 points, 10 rebounds, and three assists of his own. The Jackets were dominant, both offensively and defensively, as they only allowed 5-third quarter points while stinging the defense for 30 points. Telecommunications improves their perfect and undefeated record to 11-0 and Erasmus Hall dropped to a woeful, 1-10 record. The Midwood Hornets has averaged 19.20 points in the first quarter this season but they scored 40 and dropped Lafayette to their 11th consecutive defeat on the season at Midwood. Leading the Hornets was guard Kavon Baker, who scored 16 points, pulling down four rebounds, and dished out four assists. The headliner in this one wasn’t which Hornet scored the most but it was how much they allowed. The loss drops Lafayette to 0-11 while the win raises the Hornets’ record to 9-2, good enough for a second place tie with the Sheepshead Bay, also 9-2 after beating Fort Hamilton. With both of the division’s top scorers held to under 20 points, it meant that someone else had to come off the bench and step up. And they did but only for the Tilden Blue Devils. Blue Devils’ center Nigel Francis has averaged a little under 10 points, squeezed out a 23 point, 23 rebound, and an assist game to lift Tilden past the Cougars at FDR. Division leading scorer, Blue Devils’ guard Ashton Pascall, only scored six points, a game low for this 2006-2007 campaign. On the flip side for FDR, guard/forward Tomasz Kurpiewski only scored five points. In the loosing cause for the Cougars, guard Steven Sharrers had 15 points, four rebounds, and two assists. With the loss, the Cougars dropped to 3-8 while the Blue Devils improved to 6-5. New Utrecht guard Ismael Gonzalez scored 21 against FDR on Monday and he did it again against Madison as they edged the Knights by two at Madison. Gonzalez added six rebounds and four assists to lead the way. In the lost cause for the Knights, guard Garfield Charles added 18 points, four rebounds, and two assists. The victory for Utes raises their record to 7-4 and Madison drops to 3-8 on the year. The last time that the Lafayette Patriots won a game was February 9, 2006, a three point victory over New Utrecht. Since then they have lost 13 consecutive games and sadly this streak would extend to 14 consecutive games as Fort Hamilton blew out the Patriots at Fort Hamilton. The Tigers dominated the game from start, scoring 18 in the opening quarter and slammed door by scoring 25 in the closing quarter, to match the second time this season that they had scored 90-plus points against an opponent. The last time they scored 90-plus was the home opener on November 29 against Tilden, where they scored 97. With the victory, the Tigers are tied for third at 7-5 along with New Utrecht. With the loss, the Patriots officially mark themselves out of any playoff positioning with six games left in the season, as they continue to search for their first win of the year. The Telecommunications Yellow Jackets can be rated as this division’s perennial powerhouse, defeating all of their divisional opponents, at least once. On Monday, they edged Sheepshead Bay by five and on Wednesday, they thumped Erasmus Hall, both on their second go-around. And today they stung the Utes of New Utrecht for a second time at New Utrecht. After scoring a season high of 34 on Monday against Sheepshead Bay, Yellow Jackets forward/center Nikita Davis lit up the scoreboard for 33 while adding 14 rebounds and three assists to his stat total. The amazing statistic for the Yellow Jackets was that Davis accounted for half of his team’s offense as the bench contributed 37 points. For the Utes, guard/forward Amr Red Salem scored 16 points, pulled down six rebounds, and dished out two assists in the loss. Despite being held to only 9-second quarter points, the Yellow Jackets lowest point total for the season, they managed to squeeze out 15-plus points in each of the other three quarters. With the victory, the Yellow Jackets stays undefeated and has their perfect record unblemished at 12-0 while New Utrecht drops down to 7-5. Prior to this game, the Midwood Hornets are 3-1 away from the beehive, its possible to make it 4-1 as they thumped the Cougars at FDR. Leading the bees was forward Kevin Henry, who notched in 20 points, seven rebounds, and three assists. Despite having their top two players, Steven Sharrers and Tomasz Kurpiewski combined for 42 of their 65 points, the FDR Cougars still weren’t able to beat their opponent. The Sharks got an unlikely impressive performance by guard Corey Staley whose season average is 8.75 points per game, he took his chomp into the stat book by scoring 21 points, pulling down eight rebounds, and dishing out two assists. Despite leading all scorers, Knights’ forward Javon Jean contributed 23 points and 14 rebounds. With the victory, the Sharks are stilled tied for second with Midwood at 10-2 and are still two games out of first place but the loss drops the Knights to 3-9. The Dutchmen, despite their 1-10 record coming into this game, came ready to play the division’s leading scorer, Blue Devils guard Ashton Pascall. At the end of 12 minutes of play, the Dutchmen had a rare and slim three point lead over Tilden, 17-14. But the Blue Devils came firing back scoring 20-second quarter points to lead by 10, 34-24 at the half. Erasmus would get within four after three quarters of play, 44-40 at the end of three quarters. It was in the fourth quarter that the Dutchmen eclipse the Blue Devils by scoring 18 to knot the game at 58 a piece at the end of regulation. So, the game would need an extra five minutes to determine the winner of this contest. The Dutchmen would power their way through with a 10 point extra session to lift them by four past Tilden.
