Fox Lane Cruises to a Lopsided Victory Over the Bears
A disastrous second quarter for the Briarcliff boys’ basketball team quickly turned what had been a competitive first eight minutes in Saturday’s matinee against the visiting Fox Lane Foxes into a complete rout.
Outscoring the Bears 21-4 in the game-altering period, Fox Lane built a 20-point halftime cushion and never looked back, cruising to a 60-39 victory over the cold-shooting hosts, who have now dropped three games in a row. Justin Allen and Charles Shevick scored 14 points apiece, while Matt Toscano and Niko Dent each added seven as the Foxes improved to 4-1 a couple of weeks into the 2021-22 season.
“We really shared the ball well,” said Fox coach Mike Tomassi afterwards. “Our focus coming in, the way they play defensively, was to really be unselfish, keep the ball moving. They’re aggressive defensively, so we just really wanted that ball to be moving, be unselfish, attack the basket.”
The day had begun promisingly enough for Briarcliff with senior forward Luke McCann nailing a 3-pointer just 20 seconds after the opening tipoff. But the Foxes grabbed the lead for good with 2:23 left in the first quarter when Allen made one of his five steals and went coast to coast for a two-handed dunk. Allen’s pullup 17-foot jumper with just under a minute to go gave Fox Lane a 12-9 lead heading to the second quarter.
Unfortunately for the Bears, they then went scoreless for the first five and a half minutes of the second quarter. Meanwhile, Fox Lane took command with Allen making another steal that led to his lefty layup, Toscano connecting on a 3-point shot from the right corner, Dent adding a trey from the left corner and Shevick capping the 10-0 run with a mid-range jumper.
The Bears finally ended their long scoring drought when Ben Siegel drove down the lane for a lefty layup, but the Foxes followed with Shevick draining one of his four 3-pointers and then an old-fashioned 3-point play by Pedro Silva that stretched their lead to 17 points. Another conventional 3-point play, this time from Allen, with 10 seconds left in the quarter gave Fox Lane a 33-13 lead at halftime.
“Most importantly, this is probably our best defensive game overall,” said Tomassi, whose team limited Briarcliff to just two baskets in the second quarter. “We let our defense turn into offense. Normally, we’re a really good defensive team. That’s kind of been our staple.”
Briarcliff scored the first basket of the second half, a layup by senior guard Jayden Larregue. But the Bears were then kept scoreless for nearly another four minutes and found themselves trailing 39-15 when Shevick connected on a 3-point shot from the left corner with 3:26 to go in the third quarter. Another trey, this one from Michael Lombardi from the right corner with a minute left, sent the Foxes into the final period leading 44-21.
The Foxes opened up their largest lead of the day, 27 points, with just under three minutes to play before freshman Luke Lawler provided a late highlight for the Bears with two buckets and two free throws in an 8-0 run that helped make the final score a little bit more respectable.
“We’re pretty well-rounded,” said Tomassi. “We’ve got a bunch of guys that love basketball and want to compete every day. It’s just about getting better as a team every day. And that’s kind of our mission. We’ve definitely made strides since our first game at Yorktown, but we’re not where we need to be. We just need to keep getting better, and I’m excited for where we could potentially go. But it’s not gonna happen overnight.”
Nor is it going to happen overnight for the reeling Bears, whose coach, Nick Friedman, will be looking to hit the reset button as his players now get a lengthy break before their next game.
“We’ve just got a lot of stuff to figure out,” he said. “We don’t know who we are. We don’t have an identity yet. We’re a work in progress. We put in a new offense and we’re not committed to it yet. So it’s kind of back to the drawing board. If we’re running our offense, then we shoot with confidence. If we’re not, then we don’t and that’s what you saw today.”
Andy is a sports editor at Examiner Media, covering seven high schools in the mid-Westchester region with a notebook and camera. He began there in the fall of 2007 following 15 years as a candid photographer for the largest school picture company in the tri-state area.
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