Pats drop opener

Johnston holds off Pilgrim in 45-32 victory

By ALEX SPONSELLER
Posted 12/11/18

The Johnston boys basketball team would hold off the visiting Pilgrim Patriots to open the season with a 45-32 non-league win last week. The Pats, who took a 14-12 lead into halftime, would pull within five points midway through the second half with the

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Pats drop opener

Johnston holds off Pilgrim in 45-32 victory

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The Johnston boys basketball team would hold off the visiting Pilgrim Patriots to open the season with a 45-32 non-league win last week.

The Pats, who took a 14-12 lead into halftime, would pull within five points midway through the second half with the score sitting at 23-21, however, the Panthers would surge in the final minutes and go on a 22-11 run to close out the win in front of the home crowd.

“We played some good defense, we used a new combination on the floor that did real well, and they made some shots. Our man to man defense was pretty good, we didn’t foul a lot, we rebounded well, but we got a little more aggressive, picked up the tempo and made some shots … you have to make those shots,” said Johnston coach Dan Mazzulla after the win.

“They executed down the stretch and we didn’t. Right now, we need to figure out who we can get the ball to at the end, it’s a learning curve, they’ve been with me for two weeks,” said Pilgrim coach Matt Fontaine. “We’re trying to figure everything out right now, we’re battling a few injuries, it’s going to take some time to figure out and that’s the benefit of non-league games.”

Leading 23-21, the Panthers would pick up the pace to push the Pilgrim defense. Thomas Zednik came up with eight points down the stretch including a big 3-pointer. Cameron Sabitoni would also add a 3-pointer to help push the game out of reach in the final minutes of the contest.

Fontaine felt that his club’s difficulty scoring consistently was the biggest issue down the stretch.

“I thought we battled defensively, I thought we did well overall, but we just struggled to get any sort of flow going offensively. Hopefully that comes and we continue to learn each day,” said Fontaine, who was also impressed with Johnston’s size up front. “They’re big up front but at the same time, we need to knock down shots offensively. I thought we did OK on the boards, we didn’t really give them too many second chances until the end, but their size did throw us off a little bit.”

Johnston jumped out to a 7-0 lead to begin the game, but the Patriots would go on a 14-5 run to make it 14-12 at the halftime break. Although the Pats kept it close in the first few minutes of the second, they were not able to keep up with the cruising Panthers the rest of the way.

“It was good to finally play against someone other than ourselves. They were excited and came out strong (in the first few minutes) but then they came back down to earth a little bit. We got up 7-0 and we got a little lazy, making some bad decisions, we weren’t really hustling,” said Mazzulla of his team’s first half. “We told them at halftime that we had to pick up the tempo and stop making silly plays. They played really well in the second and scored 32 points … we were really happy with that.”

“I stressed before the game that we needed to come out firing … then we fell behind 7-0. We turned around and it was 14-12 at the half, but we let too many opportunities slip away. It’s easy to get frustrated, but we have the video and we’ll figure it out,” added Fontaine.

Thomas Zednik and Matthew Sabitoni led Johnston with 10 points each while Jason Canton added nine. David D’Andrea led Pilgrim with nine points while Kenny Rix chipped in six in the loss.

The Pats will now flip the page to tonight’s home opener against East Providence, while the Panthers faced Woonsocket Monday evening.

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