DEKALB – It was evident in the first quarter of the boys basketball game between Ridgewood and DeKalb on Saturday that the Rebels were going to rely on 3-point shooting.
Ridgewood sank all three of its treys in the first quarter to take a one-point lead after the first eight minutes in the 90th Chuck Dayton Holiday Classic seventh-place game.
However, poor shooting and DeKalb’s strong defense limited Ridgewood to only three more buckets from beyond the arc during the rest of the game as the Barbs downed the Rebels, 45-36 to take the seventh place trophy.
“I thought we did a really nice job defensively,” DeKalb coach Al Biancalana said. “They are a team that shoots a lot threes and I thought we were we did a good job of extending our defense on the perimeter and making them shoot over the top of us.”
Ridgewood (7-7) missed 17 3-pointers during the last three quarters while DeKalb out rebounded the Rebels, 29-20, and forced 11 turnovers.
“We try to rely on threes. We did not shoot well all tournament. I think we shot 25% for four games,” said Ridgewood coach Chris Mroz. "DeKalb is very hard-nosed and they caused us some problems with being physical. To their credit they did a very good job defensively.”
The Barbs’ improving offense committed only seven turnovers and penetrated the Rebels’ defense for 26 points in the paint.
“(Offensively) we are a work in progress. I saw some things today that were much better,” Biancalana said. “They were switching a lot of screens. We recognized them much better than we have all your year long.”
“We saw that they were switching a lot and that we had a couple of mismatches. We exploited that a lot,” said DeKalb’s Marcus Bobo, who was named to the all-tournament team.
The Barbs took its first lead of the game 30 seconds into the second quarter when Bobo connected on two free throws to put the Barbs in front, 10-9. The senior forward had a double-double as he scored 10 points and grabbed 10 rebounds.
Ridgewood responded by canning two more treys to retake the lead 15-10, both by Dominic Devivo, who led all scorers with 18 points. The Rebels would make only one more 3-pointer in the game.
The Barbs retook the lead for good with 3:15 left in the half, 16-15 when Michael Albert (8 points) scored on a baseline lay-up. DeKalb (7-4) held a 23-19 advantage at half time.
Ridgewood rallied in the third quarter and pulled within one point, 29-28 on a Michael Barnas (6 points) bucket.
DeKalb scored the last four points of the quarter on baskets by Jordan Williams and Isaiah Youngquist (11 points) to push the lead at the end of the period back to 5 points, 33-28. The Barbs continued to pull away in the fourth quarter.