This LegalMatch Basketball news was written by Lance Burton on 9/17/04.
In spite of some very sweet shooting from Nerd’s captain Patricia Rae, it wasn’t enough to over come the 6 points and 6 rebounds by Crouching Tiger’s Ona Ahumada, and prevent her from leading the Tigers to a 2 games to none series victory over the Revenge of the Nerds. I’ll say this much for the Nerds – they bring it. What they bring I’m still trying to figure out. But, at 0 & 2 we’re seeing a team that’s still on the rise. The coordination between the Nerds appears to be improving with each game they play. Neil Fradkin is becoming a force inside. Ben Wells is an animal on the boards and should they get Rob Devereaux back in the lineup and Yuri Gelman back from vacation next week, some team in an upcoming game is in for a whole lot of trouble. I wouldn’t want to be in the line of fire when this group breaks out. It looks like Patricia Rae may be grooming a surprise player as we saw an unknown face warming up and taking some shots during the game. He seemed awfully sweet on Rae. When asked about this secret player, Rae gave a fiery glance and said “no comment” and rushed off to the ladies locker room. We’ll be following this story closely. More on this later.
Meanwhile, Crouching Tigers, with Doug Ott, playing the role of the “big man” by rebounding, blocking shots and just showing all around command of the game, allowed team mates Joe Curtis and Ona Ahumada to masterfully roam the court and look awfully smooth while comfortably winning this series. So in control were the Tigers they didn’t even need to use their entire roster fully. Ben Sandheim came off the bench to score 3 points, while sub Myk Brown used the time to take in the terrific whether and enjoy the view and from the Rooftop Garden.
Arguably, the best game of the young season may have taken place Wednesday when Rejection Sustained defeated Affirmative Action 2 games to 1. The game saw more than 150 shots taken. 3 players had double digits in rebounds. And, a third and final game that went 5 points into overtime. The whole affair lasted nearly an hour an a half. In the end though, it was the outstanding shooting of Matt Griffith that sealed the victory for the 2 and O Rejection Sustained ballclub. It didn’t look it would finish that way early, as Affirmative Actions’ Alex Karzag seemed bent on making easy pickins of Rejection. Karzag carried almost single handedly the Ushma Multani coached Affirmative Action to a 10 -6 first game win. With Solid rebounding and forceful inside play from Peter Reis, the duo appeared too much for the Rejection. By the second game, however, Rejection’s Griffith caught fire, got strong defense from Randy Wells, and Leslie Murray, found a spark from Augie Chun and got tenacious rebounding and critical shots from Ken Monster LaMance to push the momentum in the other direction and win game 2 handily.
click on here to view photos from yesterday!!
– Photos courtesy of Diane Tran –
All this was merely a set up for game 3 which started off similarly to the previous game. A well organized team approach by Rejection Sustained jumped out to a solid 8-3 lead and quieted the full house crowd of onlookers as everyone got set to head down to Zebulon for cocktails in celebration of Rob Devereaux’s 1st year anniversary with LegalMatch. Then, something snapped and Affirmative Action’s Pete Reis, Alex Karzag, Teejay Clemena and Jeff Sacramento reached deep down into something and pulled a magic trick out of their bag to lift themselves up from the 8-3 deficit to come back and tie the contest at 9. This certainly took a Herculean effort because by now an hour and fifteen minutes later of toiling under the hot sun, everyone was thoroughly exhausted. By then every shot, rebound and pass looked like 6 men on a chain gang moving cement blocks around. At 10 10, the tension mounted. Every play became critical. Finally, with Rejection ahead 13 – 12 Griffith took a pass from Monster LaMance and hit the jumper that put Affirmative Action away for good 14 -12. Boy were the players pleased to see this one end. All agreed, this was a great game.****
In Thursday’s match Supreme Court made its debut against Kill Ball Vol.1.and served notice by beating Kill Ball 2 games to none. Supreme Court clad in white t-shirts looked very dignified in comparison to the rag tag dressed Kill Ball. Supreme Court’s ‘team play’ was just as dignified. They passed and cut sharply. They defended with honor. They boxed out and rebounded deliberately. They missed few shot attempts. They showed poise and determination. And in the end, they simply wore down their opponent with solid, balanced contributions from both their starters and the back-ups. Michael Gutman led the way for Laurie Ziffrin’s well coached team. Gutman led all scorers with 13 points. Solid performances from Ziffrin, Jian Ouyang, Kurt Jerdon and Lance Burton made it tough for Kill Ball’s very talented team of Captain Diane Tran, the always dangerous Richard Firanza, the big country kid from Manteca Jason Hudgins, the hulking Eugene Stynik and the leagues leading scorer Frank Perkins to get much going after battling so ferociously in the first game, only to lose 12 – 10 in overtime.
In the second game, after falling behind 3-0 on 3 quick baskets by Perkins, Supreme Court calmly went on an 8-0 run with Michael Gutman finding the zone and then shooting the lights out. Ziffrin said the strategies she drew up after scouting Kill Ball worked marvelously. “We knew that if we let Perkins run around and do his thing he would eventually run out of gas…and he did. We also put an emphasis on passing the ball and using our outside shooting to take advantage of our mobility. All I had to do was shutdown the very athletic Diane Tran, which I did, and the game would be ours. I think if people read what is on the backs of our jerseys, they’ll get a sense of what this team is all about. I think we showed, today, by a unanimous decision, that we are a Supreme Court united. Next case!” Judging from the disciplined play of the *Court* team and the solid coaching of Ziffrin, this could be the team to beat. Time will tell. That’s why they play the games.
Next week’s best game points to Rejection Sustained and Supreme Court on Thursday. Both teams are undefeated. And feature a face off between Michael Gutman and the #1 scorer in the league, Matt Griffith. This should be good.
Here are your scoring leaders and standings.
Crouching Tigers -10/10
Pts/ Rebounds
Ona Ahumada 6/6
Doug Ott 6/12
Joe Curtis 4/6
Ben Sandheim 3/1
Revenge of the Nerds– 3/5
Patricia Rae 3/2
Neil Fradkin 2/5
Benny Wells 3/10
Secret Player ¼
Rejection Sustained – 7/10/14
Leslie Murray 1/2
Matt Griffith 18/22
Ken LaMance 5/28
Augie Chun 5/3
Randy Wells 3/1
Affirmative Action – 10/5/12
Ushma Multani 3/2
Peter Reis 10/25
Alex Karzag 11/9
Teejay Clemena 4/1
Jeff Sacramento 2/1
Kill Ball Vol. 1 – 10/4
Diane Tran – 0/2
Frank Perkins – 7/12
Richard Firanza – 5/2
Eugene Stynik – 1/1
Jason Hudgins – ½
Supreme Court – 12/10
Laurie Ziffrin – 1/1
Michael Gutman – 13/7
Lance Burton – 4/4
Kurt Jerdon – 2/5
Jian Ouyang – 3/3
Standings
Rejection Sustained – 2/0
Supreme Court – 1/0
Crouching Tigers – 1/1
Kill Ball Vol. 1 – 1/1
Affirmative Action – 0/1
Revenge of the Nerds – 0/2
****** Player of the Week*******
********* Matt Griffith**********