To view game action photos, visit the photo gallery and click on the following link: http://photos.suburbanonesports.com/
NEWTOWN – The play was highlight reel material.Will Barrett came out of nowhere to turn a perfect alley-oop pass from teammate Mike Doty into a monster dunk that ignited the Central Bucks South fans late in Monday night’s opening round game of the Athletes Helping Athletes Tournament against St. Paul’s School for Boys.
“He claims himself to be the number one ‘oop’ thrower on the East Coast,” Barrett said of Doty. “So that’s good for me to have on our team because we have a couple of hookups already.
“Every time I see him with the ball, I try to sprint to the basket and try to get an ‘oop’ because it gets the team going, it gets the coaches going, and it gets the fans going.”
“I love feeding the big men the ball,” Doty said. “When you have a 6-9 athletic, D-1 kid, you just feed him the ball. It’s fun to watch.”
For South fans, the Doty-Barrett combination was a whole lot of fun to watch in Monday’s convincing 77-58 win.
Barrett scored a game-high 19 points – all in the second half. He also had 11 rebounds, three assists and two blocked shots. Doty – who transferred to South from Germantown Academy this year - added 17 points, seven assists and four rebounds.
“We have a lot of versatility with those two guys,” South coach Jason Campbell said. “Barrett – at 6-8 – can take people off the dribble, he can shoot pretty well from the outside, and when we need him to post up, he’ll post up.
“Mike Doty can shoot the ball from the outside. He’s good at driving, so we’re able to create mismatches with him as well, and he’s a good passer.”
For Barrett and the Titans, having Doty at full strength can only mean good things.
“In the first game of the season against Conestoga, Mike went up for a layup about 10 seconds into the game,” Barrett said. “He came down on somebody and rolled his ankle really bad.
“He has been struggling with that the whole season, but he’s been fighting that as hard as he can. He came in tonight and killed it. It’s going to be exciting to watch the rest of the season.”
The win was the sixth in a row for the Titans, who were 1-2 after three games.
“We had a couple of injuries at the beginning of the season, and we did play some pretty good teams – Conestoga and Quakertown,” Barrett said. “We kill each other every day at practice. There was no doubt in my mind that we were going to come back and play good again.”
Campbell - whose team earned a date with host Council Rock North in Tuesday’s 7:30 p.m. title game - likes what he’s seeing from his veteran squad that features seven seniors.
“Doty is obviously new to our team, and he really has fit in well with us,” the Titans’ coach said of the Germantown Academy transfer. “The leadership – we’re unselfish, we have guys who want to share the basketball. We’re not playing individually; we’re playing for the team. They’re not getting caught up in points. They’re caught up in the team getting points.”
It’s easy to put points on the board when you’re hitting your shots, and the Titans certainly were hitting theirs in Monday’s win that saw them connect on 30-of-59 shots from the floor – many of those easy baskets in transition.
The Titans appeared to be on their way to a cakewalk when – after taking a 14-11 lead at the end of one quarter – they went on a 22-12 second-quarter scoring tear en route to a 36-23 halftime lead. Doty had eight of his points in the second quarter, and the senior forward has made the transition to his new team look effortless.
“I have been playing basketball my whole life,” he said. “It’s been real easy coming in here. I’m really enjoying my teammates and playing for C.B. South.”
St. Paul’s trimmed the Titans’ lead to 53-48 at the end of three quarters after Winfield Willis (12 points) connected on a pair of foul shots. But just when it looked as though St. Paul’s was going to make a game of it, the Titans responded with an overpowering run of their own.
It began with Doty cutting to the hole for an easy bucket, and then, after a St. Paul’s miss, Barrett turned an Alex Dedeian feed into a basket. Ryan Clark scored a fast break bucket off a St. Paul’s miss, and the Titans led 59-48.
A pair of Barrett foul shots made it a 61-48 game, and although St. Paul’s interrupted the run with a basket by Sidney McCray (15 points), it was only a temporary reprieve.
Barrett displayed some nifty moves on a drive to the hole and – despite being fouled – converted the basket. He drained the foul shot to put the Titans on top 64-50. Another St. Paul’s miss was following by Barrett finding Dedeian wide open under the basket for an easy deuce.
“Our big thing is playing team ball – hitting the open guy,” Barrett said. “That’s what we started to do when we pulled away – hitting our open shots. That’s what we’ve been doing the past six wins in a row.”
With the game winding down and the outcome long since decided, Doty and Barrett hooked up for the dunk, and then, after a St. Paul’s turnover, Barrett drove to the basket uncontested and slammed one home, putting the finishing touches on a big performance.
In the fourth quarter, the Titans outscored St. Paul’s 24-10.
“The best part of our guys is they play good defense,” Campbell said. “They pride themselves in shutting people down and trying to hold them under 45 points.”
As a result of the win, the Titans upped their record to 7-2 on the season.
“We started out a little sluggish – we were 1-2, but I think we learned from our Quakertown loss about sticking to our game plan,” Campbell said. “The guys have done a real good job responding since then of being focused and sticking with the game plan.
“We got away from that a little bit in the third quarter when they made that run. I called a timeout and mentioned it again, and we went from being up five to being up 17.”
CENTRAL BUCKS SOUTH 77, ST. PAUL’S 58
St. Paul’s (58) – Davis 4 2-3 10, Sydnor 2 6-7 10, Code 2 1-2 5, Willis 4 2-2 12, Bartan 0 0-0 0, Bowman 0 0-0 0, Kuchno 0 0-0 0, McCray 6 1-2 15, Riehl 2 2-4 6. Totals 20 14-20 58.
Central Bucks South (77) – Doty 7 2-4 17, Gordon 3 0-0 6, Johnston 1 0-2 2, Pincus 2 5-5 9, Clark 4 0-0 9, Dedeian 4 0-0 8, Joerger 1 0-0 2, Kavalek 0 3-4 3, Maher 1 0-0 2. Totals 30 15-21 77.
St. Paul’s 11 12 25 10-58
Central Bucks South 14 22 19 24-77
Three-point goals: Willis 2, McCray 2, Doty, Clark.
- Log in to post comments
0
