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Barrie suffers PVAC setbacks

Wednesday, Feb. 1, 2006

The Barrie boys basketball team had its 11-game league winning streak snapped last week and lost two games in a row for the first time since December. But Mustangs coach Jack Mitchell believes a little bit of adversity at this time of the season could be a blessing in disguise.

Still the leaders in the Potomac Valley Athletic Conference’s North Division, Barrie dropped its first league game last Thursday to an improving Hebrew Academy squad by the score of 42-33. The Mustangs managed just 14 first-half points and had just one player, sophomore shooting guard Justin Graves, reach double figures in points with 13.

On the other side, Cougars senior center Daniel Yitzhaky produced 17 points and 10 rebounds, exploiting Barrie’s interior defense.

‘‘Hebrew Academy is a well-coached program and they did an excellent job of packing in a 1-2-2 zone,” Mitchell said. ‘‘They seemed to switch up to a 2-1-2 zone defense. It was excellent. We couldn’t get the ball inside. You live or die by the jump shot and we didn’t shoot well at all. It was our lowest scoring output all season.”

The Mustangs followed that setback with a 54-48 loss to the non-league Heights (13-8) Saturday afternoon. Barrie’s talented backcourt of junior point guard Eric White (16 points) and Graves (14 points) combined for 30 points, but a late 3-pointer by Heights senior guard Chris Berset (16 points) helped stop an 8-0 rally by the Mustangs in the fourth quarter. White scored 13 of his 16 points in the second half.

‘‘Hopefully, we can use both games to refocus and recommit and try to make a run at it,” Mitchell said. ‘‘When you’re 6-0, 8-0, 10-0, 11-0, practices aren’t as focused and the kids don’t listen as much. I think [the Hebrew Academy loss] particularly rung a couple of bells.”

Barrie got back on track somewhat Monday, defeating league foe Washington Waldorf, 28-23, behind 12 points from Graves to improve to 15-6 overall and 12-1 in the PVAC, placing it four games in the loss column ahead of Jewish Day (11-6, 10-5) and Hebrew Academy (10-6, 7-5).