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Rockets, Rams continuing their winning ways

Wednesday, Jan. 17, 2007

You can’t pigeon-hole the Richard Montgomery boys basketball team into any particular modus operandi. Sometimes they’re a perimeter team, sometimes they paint. And sometimes they break out to big leads, sometimes they face large early deficits.

But regardless of the Rockets’ unpredictability, they’ve proven to be winners. They proved it again this past week, with a thrilling, come-from-behind victory over Damascus last Tuesday preceding a 17-point blowout of Wootton.

‘‘I feel really good about how we’re playing,” said coach Scott Spear. ‘‘We’re 4-2 in the division, one game out of the lead, and we’d be one of the top four seeds in the playoffs if the season ended now. And we’ve won three overtime games and two where we were down double digits. I don’t know if it’s one thing by itself, but our four senior starters have come up big.”

It has started with senior forward Timmy Clarke, Richard Montgomery’s versatile small forward who has been called upon to be the go-to scorer late in games. Against Wootton, he scored 18 points, with an astounding 16 coming from the foul line in the fourth quarter. The Rockets (8-4 overall record) other top perimeter threat, guard Vinnie Brown, carried the offensive load early, scoring 13 of his 17 points in the first half.

The Rockets were able to hold onto a late lead against the Patriots, after only leading by four entering the fourth quarter. The scenario was much different against Damascus, who led big before Richard Montgomery sliced into the lead. Junior point guard Alex Chike scored the first seven points of the quarter, and power forward Devin Gule banked in a 10-footer at the buzzer to give his team a 54-53 victory over the Swarmin’ Hornets.

With a 25-point fourth quarter, the Rockets erased what was, at one point, a 13-point deficit. Spear loves his team’s resiliency, but doesn’t like its trend of falling behind early. It’s bad for his heart.

‘‘We were down 13-3 to Damascus at the end of one, and the other day, Wootton was beating us 17-14,” Spear said. ‘‘I don’t know what it is — they even changed their warm-ups, thinking that the old warm-ups weren’t getting them loose enough. It’s hard to say. But the good thing is we’re able to adjust to any situation, whether we’re ahead or behind.”

Rams reach .500

After winning just one game through the entire 2005-2006 regular season, the Rockville boys basketball team picked up its fifth win this season with a 79-71 victory over Northwood Friday.

In a game that featured several momentum shifts, Rockville (5-5 record) was able to put the clamp on the Gladiators when it needed to, something they’ve struggled to do in the past.

‘‘The kids are competing well,” Rockville coach Jack Freeman said. ‘‘If you’re just participants, you’re not going to win. You’ve got to be competitors. Before, we were just being participants, now we’re competitors.”

Rockville led 40-37 at halftime and was able to hold on to its advantage to clinch the win. Inside-outside threat, senior guard Sean Canahuate, led the Rams in scoring with 29 points. Senior center Kevin McTighe added 19 points and senior guard Phil Dennis contributed 16 points in the win.

‘‘Our biggest thing right now is we’re playing as a team,” Freeman said. ‘‘Different kids are picking us up on different nights and that really helps.”

Inconsistency and rookie errors plagued Rockville last season, but the Rams have really tightened up their game this year. They’re averaging just 10 turnovers per game. And, after losing a 10-point lead late in Friday’s game — they watched a 63-53 lead dwindle to 65-63 — they were able to regain their focus quickly and ultimately pull ahead for the win.

‘‘We’re happy with where we are,” Freeman said. ‘‘We’re the type of team that has to take risks and we’re doing that. We need to keep taking care of the ball and we’ll see what happens.”