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Sports

Staples Boys Basketball Nets First Win

The Wreckers defeat Weston 60-50.

After a one-point loss to McMahon last Tuesday, the Wreckers looked to continue their strong play against rival Weston in the 2009 Holiday Tournament.

For the past five years, the Wreckers were held at Weston High School but this year they took advantage of playing host as they jumped out to a quick 10-5 start. However, the 2-0 Weston Trojans found their stroke from the outside as they closed the first quarter on a 13-5 run to take an 18-15 lead.

After falling behind at the end of the first quarter, the Wreckers came out firing in the second as strong team defense and timely buckets ignited Staples to an 11-0 run. Junior Gabe Seidman lead the charge for the Wreckers as he scored 8 points in the quarter and came away with two steals. Fellow classmates Grant Fenton and Jake Felman made life miserable for the Trojans in the low post as the Wrecker defense held Weston to just 2 points in the second quarter giving the home team a 31-20 lead at the break.

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Though the Trojans struggled in the second quarter, they came out of the locker room strong in the third as they cut the Wrecker lead in half thanks to harassing pressure defense. Weston's senior captain Dennis Levene came alive in the third quarter as he scored 8 points in the period and helped the Trojans climb back into the ball game. However, the Wreckers continued to play well on the offensive side of the ball as Fenton tipped in a miss by junior Luke Yeager, Seidman put in a floter and Felman converted on a backdoor layup to give the Wreckers a 41-31 lead at the end of three.

Staples opened the fourth quarter in the same successful fashion as Yeager found senior captain Brendan Rankowitz for a layup giving the Wreckers a 44-31 lead. Up by as many as 19 in the fourth quarter, the Wreckers dominated the Trojans as pressure on the defensive side of the ball and success in the paint propelled the Wreckers to a 60-50 win. Staples put the cherry on top in the final minutes when Fenton swatted Trojan star player Levene. It was a breakout game for him as he finished the evening with 11 rebounds and 3 blocks.

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Despite not having starting point guard Frankie Bergonzi in uniform, the Wreckers were still able to be successful as Yeager and Seidman had their best games of the year. The juniors stepped up in a huge way for the young Wreckers as they got their first win of the season, improving their record to 1-3. For coach Colin Devine, he was most impressed by the improvement his team has made on the offensive side of the ball.

"The kids made great reads going backdoor and getting layups, the team that makes the most layups and free throws in a high school basketball game is going to win and we did that tonight," Devine said.

As for junior Luke Yeager, he knew that with Bergonzi out of the lineup that he would have to be one of the guys to step up for the Wreckers.

"Frankie is a big part of this team and we knew that Gabe and I had to step it up in order to win the game," Yeager said.

Now with win No. 1 under their belt, Yeager is confident Staples can build on the momentum of the Holiday Tournament moving forward for the rest of the year.

"It is pretty big now we have a chance to win tournament championship which will give us motivation moving forward in the rest of our FCIAC schedule," Yeager said.

Staples will square off against FCIAC rival Ridgefield in the Holiday Tournament finals on Wednesday night. The game will played at 8 p.m. at Staples High School and can be heard on 90.3 WWPT FM or wwptfm.com.

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