MASSAPEQUA, N.Y. — What a difference a day made in the performance of the Kingston High boys basketball team.
Less than 24 hours after a sluggish 58-47 season-opening win over Warwick at the Kate Walton Field House on Friday, the Tigers looked sharp in posting an exciting 77-75 non-league victory over Garden City at the Massapequa Fieldhouse Sports Complex on Long Island on Saturday, Dec. 6.
Kingston coach Ron Kelder, who wasn’t pleased with his team’s play in the non-league win over Warwick, felt his team bounced back with a good effort on Saturday following a 3 1/2-hour bus ride to Long Island.
“We played really well through the first half and executed our high-low situations with Kevin (Castillo) and Syed (Lewis),” Kelder said. “We were able to pound around the basket and score. We were much better on the glass today and with our ability to get the ball inside. Max (Sheth) made five 3s and played well. We shot an extremely good percentage, too.”
The Tigers (2-0) led 42-31 at the half, but Garden City took a 56-53 lead into the fourth quarter by outscoring Kingston 25-11 in the third quarter.
“They had a monster third quarter where they made everything and attacked the rim on us a little bit,” Kelder said. “But then we went back up by seven points in the final quarter and closed it out. We started to move the ball a lot better with a lot less dribbling. We had better distribution of the ball. When you’re successful in practice, you need to execute it in the game and that’s pretty much we did today. We played much better than against Warwick and Garden City was a much better team.”
Castillo made two free throws to give the Tigers a 77-72 lead with 2.5 seconds left and Garden City hit a 3-pointer to close the gap to 77-75 as the time expired.
“We said, ‘No fouls, no fouls’ and didn’t play any defense and they banked one in from the 3-point line,” Kelder said.
Castillo (25 points) and Lewis (10) were big factors in the victory after combining to score just 11 points in the win over Warwick.
Sheth, a senior guard, led all scorers with 27 points. Junior guard John Pierre-Louis added 10 points for the Tigers.
Sheth, who was nursing a sore back after the Warwick game, got some treatment prior to Saturday’s game and moved well. He scored 10 of the Tigers’ 24 points in the fourth quarter and made all four of his free throw attempts.
After shooting just 7-for-19 from the charity stripe in the season opener, Kelder was happy to see the Tigers go 6-for-8 in the fourth quarter including Castillo’s two clutch makes with 2.5 seconds remaining.
Kingston will next be in action in its Orange County Interscholastic Athletic Association (OCIAA) opener at defending Section 9 Class AAA champion Newburgh Free Academy at 6:30 p.m. on Thursday, Dec. 11.
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