iS8/Nike Playoffs: Day Two

SOUTH JAMAICA, NY - The iS8/Nike Spring HS Classic playoffs for the spring continued Friday night at IS8. Here are brief recaps of those games.

Montibello was matched against Skyriders in the iS8/Nike Spring Classic Playoffs. They looked like the stronger team, in addition to being the higher seed, but you wouldn’t know it early in the contest. Early in the second quarter the Skyriders held a 32-29 lead. They were down by 5 at the end of the first quarter but they fought their way back to a good spot.

However, Montibello guard Aaron Walker ‘16 kick started his team with a nice drive into the middle of the paint and scoring on a spinning lay-up. That was followed up by a powerful drive by Tracy Cleckley to put Montibello back in front. The team spent the rest of the half taking control of the game with a 13-0 run and building a 42-32 lead going into halftime.

Montibello played very good defense in the quarter, hardly allowing the Skyriders to even get the ball up the court, and constantly getting deflections and forcing turnovers. And when the Skyriders were able to get a shot, it was heavily contested. The Montibello defense barely allowed them to breathe.

Walker was particularly excellent in picking Skyrider ball handlers, legitimate guards, and getting outright steals for the entire game. Walker struggled to finish when he penetrated, but still managed to lead the team in scoring with 26 points.

Still, despite playing well, the Skyriders fought back to within a single point in the fourth quarter on a lay-up by Keishaun Pierre. But solid free throw shooting, mainly from Cleckley who shot 11 for 12 from the charity stripe, kept the Skyriders from taking the lead late in the game. Cleckley also had a monster two-handed rebound dunk for two of his 13 points in the quarter.

Pierre led the Skyriders in scoring with a team high 21 points. Another Keshaun, this time with the last name of Crosby, was the team’s 2nd leading scorer for the game with 19 points.

Juice All-Stars (Black) made it “ugly” when they played 2 The Rack in a first round playoff game. They knocked off their opponents pretty easily in route to a dominating 87-68 victory.

Juice guard Devonte Green made a deep three from near half court to open up his scoring. Green, who scored 20 points, knocked down two more triples in the first quarter and he made it look easy. Green still was playing a little extra fancy on the floor, showing off quick no-look passes and speedy crossover dribbles during the game. Green’s dominance from long range helped Juice jump to a 27-14 lead in the first quarter.

The second quarter saw Juice increase the lead, but only by four points. Orbell Caraballo started to make his presence felt on the court. Caraballo scored 9 points in the 2nd quarter, including a dunk and a three from the top of the key. He finished with more points than anybody on Juice with 23 points.

2 the Rack never got closer than double digits in the game, but guard Christian Vital showed his skills throughout the game, mostly the first three quarters. The UConn commit scored a game high 30 points, but it was all for nothing, because 2 the Rack is now on vacation.

Juice will play Montibello Sunday morning at 9 at the Boys & Girls Club that was used as a second site.