With less than one minute remaining, junior Nolan Becker stepped to the foul line to take his second free throw. His first clanked off the backboard and this shot too, fell short, just barely touching the rim.
It summed up the tone of the game for the Runnin’ Rebels, the boys’ varsity basketball team, who lost 53-51 to Beacon High School (5-0) on Monday, December 10 and fell to 3-2. The Rebels missed 12 of 22 foul shots and committed 23 turnovers over the course of the sloppy game.
“That’ll cost you the game most of the time,” coach Philip Fisher said.
Sophomore Ethan Stumpf, who finished Monday’s game with eight rebounds, agreed.
“Free throws have been our weakness so far. We’ve lost a lot of games because of free throws,” he said. “All the games we lost, we probably should have won.”
Fisher said shoddy play from many of the seniors attributed to the loss. Stuyvesant scored their second lowest point total of the season. Senior players scored an average of eight points during the game. Becker led the team in scoring with 14 points against Beacon.
“It was mostly me,” senior and captain Jake LaMountain said. He said he specifically had trouble inbounding. “We weren’t ready for the pace of that [Monday’s] game. We panicked a little underneath.”
To make sure this wouldn’t happen again, the Rebels watched video of their loss and shot 50 free throws each at practice. It paid off, as they pulled off a 50-42 victory Wednesday, December 12 at Bayard Rustin Educational Complex.
After trailing 20-7 at the end of the second quarter, they came back to pull off an eight-point victory. To reduce the number of turnovers, Fisher substituted some of the “out of sync” seniors in favor of more guards, he said.
“I would say we took care of the ball yesterday,” Stumpf said.
Fisher believes the Rebels have performed better in away games because they have been distracted at home. “We’re not ready for home,” he said. “There’s too many distractions. Girls, the senior bar, the people who hang out by the fifth floor lunchroom.”
“We are a high school team, so we’re distracted by schoolwork, other people, and college, especially now,” he said. “But it’s our job as players to stay concentrated.”
The Rebels lost to High School of Environmental Studies, 43-27, on Monday, December 17 and now own a record of 4-3.
