Experienced York opens with win over Maine West
The York Dukes used their experience and took advantage of Maine West's inexperience to come away with a 72-62 win at the Ed Molitor Boys Basketball Tournament at Palatine Monday night.
York (1-0) scored 29 points off 27 Warrior (0-1) turnovers in winning the season opener for both teams.
"We have a lot of players back from last year's team and in an opening game like this we had an advantage," said York coach Vince Doran." Our defense created a lot of offense. When Maine West made their two runs at us we didn't get rattled."
Nate Shockey (23 points), and Sam Walsh (18) scored 7 and 10 points respectively in the first quarter, giving York a 25-12 advantage.
Training 31-20 with 5 minutes left in the first half Maine West cut the lead to 31-30 at halftime.
Justin Scholler scored the last 7 points of the half for the Warriors.
"Scholler showed some really good leadership on the floor in that run," said Maine West coach Tom Prokopij. "For many of these players this was their first varsity experience. It was really tough going against York's 1-2-2 zone defense."
York started the third quarter with a 9-0 run to lead 40-30 with two minutes gone in the second half.
Maine West was its own worst enemy, committing 9 turnovers in the quarter and watching the Dukes convert them for 14 points.
Shockey was the taskmaster with 7 points, 2 steals, and a putback basket to build a 49-33 lead with 3:15 left in the quarter. York led 56-41 after three quarters.
"We promote ourselves as a good defensive team and we hang our hat on that," said Shockey. "Coach wants us to be aggressive on defense. We've pushed 1-2-2 defense closer to the midcourt line. I was happy with my game tonight. I just don't want to get too high or get too low."
Sam Walsh, a 6-foot 5 senior, did most of his damage inside, scoring 18 points on 7 of 11 shooting from the floor.
"I really worked on my footwork over the summer to make my moves inside better," said Walsh. "With such good shooters like Shockey and (Erik) Cohn, that opens up the inside game for me. Our goal is to just win the next game."
Cohn added 17 points.
Trailing by 20 at 63-43 with 6:16 left in the game the Warriors went on a 14-5 run lead to cut the score to 65-57 with 2:23 left.
Cohn connected on a three-point play to give the Dukes some distance at 68-57 with 2:01 left.
Danny Rice led Maine West with 12 points. Sophomore Jared Pearson had 11 points and Scholler 10.
"We never quit, and I saw a lot of positives." said Prokopij. "That third quarter run by York forced us to try to dig out of another hole. We're inexperienced and it was tough going against their defense."
York will play Jacobs at 4:30 p.m. Tuesday while Maine West will take on the host Pirates at 7:30 p.m.