Will Hyde blocks eight shots and Polar Bears limit Green to one field goal in the second half
JACKSON TWP. The Green Bulldogs had the full attention of the Jackson High School boys basketball team the last five days.
“We were really tuned in at practice this week,” Polar Bears point guard Ethan Stanislawski said Friday night. “We didn’t have a game Tuesday, so we were sort of locked into this game.”
It showed on the defensive end.
Jackson put a stranglehold on visiting Green the last three quarters and pulled away for a 52-37 win in front of 1,900 fans. The victory puts the Polar Bears (13-4, 8-2) in a first-place tie atop the Federal League with Lake. Green (11-5, 8-3) drops a half game back of the two leaders.
The Bulldogs led 16-10 after the first quarter, then were held to single digits in each of the final three quarters. Will Hyde, a 6-foot-4 junior, blocked eight shots —one shy of Mark Henniger’s single-game school record — to highlight Jackson’s defensive mastery.
The Polar Bears allowed one field goal in the second half and Green missed 16 times. Over the final three quarters, Green shot 3-for-25 from the floor and scored a total of 21 points.
And to think, Green scored 77 points on the Polar Bears back on Jan. 5 in a Bulldogs win.
“Holy cow, that’s best we’ve played defensively all year,” Jackson head coach Tim Debevec said. “You give up 77 and then 37, that’s a big swing.”
The 37 points are the lowest total Jackson has allowed this season and the fewest Green has scored.
The biggest difference was Jackson’s ability to contain Green point guard Kaleb Martin, who went off for 33 points in the first matchup.
Friday, the 5-9 junior was held to 13, including just three field goal makes.
Debevec credited the difference with “double teaming him and just being more aware of where he’s at. Last time, I don’t know what we did. We didn’t do a great job that game, but that’s why you play a second round.”
Junior Sean Reed spent much of the night shadowing Martin and making his life difficult.
“Sean’s been chasing people around for the last five or six games,” Debevec said. “He’s really coming into his own. He knows that role right now. He’s the defensive stopper.”
Green made 4 of 8 3-pointers in the first quarter, then went 0-for-12 the rest of the game.
If the Bulldogs got in the lane, Hyde was waiting.
“I don’t know how the game would (have been) if Will wasn’t in the game,” Stanislawski said. “… Will’s got a little dirtiness to him. It kind of gets us going. I like it.”
The frontcourt of Hyde, 6-6 senior Jaret Pallotta and 6-3 junior Spencer Stanton was too big, too strong and too good for Green to handle on this night. Hyde totaled 10 points (eight in the fourth quarter) and six rebounds to go with his eight blocks. Stanton grabbed seven rebounds, while the versatile Pallotta had eight points, six rebounds and six assists.
Junior Anthony Mazzeo led the Polar Bears with 13 points. Two of his three 3-pointers came in the early portion of the third quarter as Jackson stretched a 23-22 halftime lead into double digits. Green didn’t make a field goal in the entire quarter.
Stanislawski was steady, with 12 points and six assists. He made a couple of first-half 3s when points were hard to come by for Jackson.
The Polar Bears’ actually shot better from the 3-point line (7-for-15) than from the foul line (7-for-16) in gaining their seventh straight win.
With Martin getting to the free throw line, Green whittled its deficit down to five points late in the third. Stanislawski then found Jake Byers in the left corner, and the 5-10 sophomore (who played in the JV game earlier) buried the biggest shot of the game, a 3-pointer with 32 seconds left to increase the lead to eight.
Green, which is still without injured senior forward Miles DeMusey, never got closer than six the rest of the way and finished the night shooting 9-for-39 from the floor.
The Polar Bears pressured the Bulldogs very little. It was mostly just half-court man-to-man defense, with extra attention being paid to Martin.
“Their defense tonight was, I thought, some of the best I’ve seen them play,” said Green head coach Mark Kinsley. “They’re just bigger and stronger in some spots than we were, and I think that showed.”
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