MEN'S BASKETBALL SURGES FORWARD

JOHNSON, VERMONT - Men's basketball wins the NVU-Johnson Classic Tournament trophy moving their record to 4-1. Tournament recognition was given to Trent McNeill as All-Tourney player, and Detric Hearst was named MVP. "I am very proud of this group.  They fought the entire weekend and pulled out a championship win on a buzzer beater.  We were shorthanded in our last game with 6'8" Shamar Mercharles sitting out due to a nagging injury, and it left us at an extreme height disadvantage.  Our guys didn't miss a beat, and they all stepped up to handle business on the backboards.  We ran into foul trouble and were forced to play some guys out of position, but again, our guys met the challenge.  We found ourselves down 1 with 12 seconds left and we pushed the ball up the court on what seemed to be an odd man break for us, but the ball was back tapped and loose on the floor. Charles Echols dove on the ball and was heady enough to call a timeout with just over 4 seconds left on the clock.  We inbounded the ball to Trent McNeill at the top of the key, and he immediately drove right with a defender on his hip.  He was able to jump stop, shot-fake, get 2 defenders in the air, pivot and shoot a turnaround jumper from 8-feet away.  The ball was in the air when the buzzer rang, and we were lucky enough to see it go in and secure the win by 1. This was a character- defining weekend for our team. We were down 16 in the second half of the first game and battled back to win, and in the champsionship game we were down 9 to an undefeated team in their home gym in the second half, and also battled back for the win.  This group is gritty, and they don't give up.  We are continuing to get better, but there is a lot of work to be done still.  No time to celebrate as we have a sold Dutchess CC coming to the Armory on Thursday." Mike Shewmaker, Head Coach

Next game: Thursday, November 17th at 7:00 PM

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