Barrie still unbeaten in PVAC

Wednesday, Jan. 25, 2006

In his first two years as head coach of the Barrie School boys basketball team Jack Mitchell’s Mustangs routinely found ways to lose close games.

The same can’t be said about this year’s squad, which is why Barrie finished this past week’s of action as the standard bearer in the Potomac Valley Athletic Conference with a perfect 11-0 league record, following Thursday night’s 43-40 win over host Jewish Day (9-5 overall, 8-4 in the PVAC) and Saturday’s 53-36 win over Queen Anne.

While most of the team’s losses in league play were by three or less points last year, the Mustangs (14-4 overall) eked out some tough victories in conference action recently, including 52-51 over Washington International, a PVAC tournament finalist last season.

‘‘You learn, and our kids we’re young last year,” Mitchell said. ‘‘We only had one senior. We were playing a bunch of young kids. We took those lessons, those hard-learned lessons from last season and that’s made us a tougher team down the stretch. Each game we’re playing with a little more confidence and we’ve lost too many close ones. I think our kids are saying, ‘No more.’ We’re refusing to lose. I’m just real proud.”

Winning those tight games has, of course, not been easy, including Thursday night’s contest with the Lions, who jumped out to a 10-2 first-quarter lead behind six quick points from senior guard Gabe Stutman (14 points).

Instead of panicking, the Mustangs picked up their defensive intensity and began to figure out Jewish Day’s man-to-man defense en route to a 23-22 halftime lead.

Junior point guard Eric White knocked down 10 of his game-high 16 points in the first half, including eight in the second quarter.

‘‘We’ve got game experience and now we’re just older and we added a couple of players and now we’re gelling as a team and we know how to end games,” White said. ‘‘Last year we were struggling. Now we know how to come out on top.”

One of those players Barrie added is sophomore guard Justin Graves, a left-handed sharp-shooter, who poured in 14 points Thursday night, including seven in the first half.

‘‘He’s a great shooter,” White said of Graves. ‘‘He’s a great ballhandler and he shares the ball. We should be the best backcourt [in the PVAC]. We have to step up our game even more.”

Using the momentum of the first-half turnaround, Barrie looked to blow open the game with an 11-2 run to start the third quarter for a 34-24 lead. White, Graves and Jeff Whitaker (9 points, 8 rebounds) hit three-pointers during the run.

Jewish Day, however, ended the third quarter on a 5-1 run and then scored six more points in a row to open the fourth quarter to tie the game at 35-35, largely through the play of David Fox (12 points) and four quick turnovers by the Mustangs.

‘‘When we’re not getting the ball movement we need,” Fox said. ‘‘When we’re not getting in the flow, we’re not getting the ball in the post. I feel like I can take my man to the basket every time and create for other players and that’s what I try to do.”

The game was tied at 38-38, until a pull-up jumper by White in the lane gave Barrie the lead for good. White then made one of two free throws with 52 seconds left for a 41-38 lead. Stutman trimmed the lead to 41-40 with two free throws with 37 seconds remaining.

After two misses at the free-throw line by both Whitaker and Jewish Day’s Zach Rosenberg in the final 38 seconds, Graves knocked down a pair of foul shots for a 43-40 lead with 16 seconds left in the game.

The Lions called timeout but good defensive pressure forced Ezra Weisel to take an off-balance three-pointer that bounced hard off the back of the rim in the closing seconds.

‘‘What was drawn up was for me to come off a screen, catch the ball going toward the baseline, drive baseline and hit Gabe Stutman in the corner for a three,” Fox said. ‘‘Unfortunately, we didn’t get me the ball so we were unable to do that. It’s just frustrating to lose this game.”

The loss dropped Jewish Day even further behind first-place Barrie in the race for the North Division title. The Lions opened last week with a crucial 45-44 loss to Queen Anne. The combination of losses probably ended the team’s hopes of winning the division title.