Sunday, January 8, 2012

By Cory K. Doviak
NJS.com Editorial Director

Jared Shill made two free throws with :02.7 left in the fourth quarter two give Pascack Hills the winning points in a 63-61 victory over Tenafly.

TENAFLY – It had already been a crazy week for the Pascack Hills boys basketball team. On Tuesday, the Cowboys fell behind 14-0 and 17-2 before rally to knock off Rutherford by double digits and on Thursday they got all they could handle from previously unbeaten Garfield before surviving in double overtime. But crazy was taken to a whole other level on Saturday in a showdown at Tenafly that included one of the wildest fourth quarters played in Bergen County in quite some time.

First of all, Pascack Hills had everything in its favor through the first three periods. With 4:06 to play in the second quarter, Tenafly's Chris Orozco, a first team All-Bergen County player last year who has signed to play at the University of New Hampshire next year, was whistled for his third personal foul while contesting a rebound and went to the bench for the rest of the half. With him on the bench, Tenafly scored just two more points in the second quarter and left the floor at halftime trailing by 14 points.

Within the first two minutes of the second half, Tenafly saw its key inside presence, Zach Rush, pick up his third foul on an over-the-back call while chasing his own missed layup and then pick up personal fouls No. 4 and No. 5 on a reach in and a technical foul called after his protest. Tenafly gave up two more technical free throws with 3:343 to play in the third quarter and when Jared Shill made the second of those, Pascack Hills had a 13-point lead, which Tenafly was able to trim by just two to 11 at the end of the third quarter.

Tenafly senior Chris Orozco scored 19 of his game-high 33 points in the fourth quarter.

But then the fourth quarter happened and Pascack Hills needed to pull out all of the stops, and two free throws by Jared Shill with under three seconds left in regulation, just to hang for a 63-61 win that could easily have gone the other way as Orozco nearly dragged his team all the way back for an improbable victory by scoring 19 points in the final 7:31 of the game.

“I've never seen a fourth quarter like that, never. That was just ridiculous. They started making some shots and it seemed like anytime anyone dribbled a ball they were getting fouled,” said Pascack Hills head coach Kevin Kirkby. “It was crazy.”

It was crazy as in just the first 1:34 of the fourth quarter the two teams combined to shoot 16 free throws and made 14 of them. Orozco made six of those and then made the first field goal of the quarter, a three-pointer 6:09 left that got the Tigers to within 50-43 after trailing by 11 after the third quarter. It looked like Pascack Hills had retaken a firm grasp on the game when it fouled out Sobo with 5:28 to play as Chris Marini made the accompanying free throws to put the Cowboys back up by double digits at 54-43.

But that was far from the case. It took Tenafly just 1:06 to score eight straight points to get right back in it with Yaniv Cohen and Orozco splitting that total. Cohen's two free throws with 4:21 left had the Tigers to within three points at 54-51 and Orozco's three-pointer 13 seconds later sliced the Pascack Hills advantage to just a single point.

“We battled back. I am proud of the way my kids played in that second half because we just kept going against a good team. This was the first time a lot of our guys were in a big atmosphere, in a packed gym, in a Jamboree-type game and they fought all the way through,” said Tenafly head coach Joe Finizio. “We have some first year guys out there and I am sure they learned some things, but we lost our composure at times and we have to do a better job of not reacting to things that were happening outside the game itself.”

Pascack Hills' Cole Dorfman scored 13 of his 19 points in the second half, including all four of his free throw attempts.

While Tenafly's frustration boiled over in the third quarter, Pascack Hills lost its form at times in the fourth. It didn't come in the form of emotional outbursts, but all of the stoppages in play broke the rhythm of the Cowboys, who prefer to run up and down the floor. Instead, Pascack Hills found itself settling for tough shots or turning the ball over more than it is used to doing and Orozco used one of those turnover to go to the basket and give his team the lead at 56-55 with 3:336 to play.

“We've had a lot of tests this week. We were down 14-0 to Rutherford before we came back, we went to double overtime with Garfield and then we had the fourth quarter here today. We figured it would go right down to the wire but maybe not the way it actually happened,” said Brian Horn, one of the three seniors that Pascack Hills uses in its starting lineup. “It's so exhilarating, it's so fun to play in this kind of atmosphere and even when we fell behind there, we were still right in it, still looking to make the play that would win it for us.”

Horn put Pascack Hills ahead twice in the final 3:20. He hit two free throws to make it 57-56 and answered a Schachar Deplovitch jumper from the corner that put Tenafly back in front with a spin move on the wing that free him for a tough layup that put PH up 59-58. Cole Dorfman went coast-to-coast to put the Cowboys up 61-58, but Tenafly was still not done. Kyle Hioki followed up two of his own missed layups by making the third and Orozco made one of two free throws with :37.8 left to tie the game for the final time at 61.

Yaniv Cohen finished with 8 points for Tenafly, which had its six-game win streak snapped.

With its depth at guard between Horn, Dorfman and Shill, Pascack Hills had no problem working the clock to make sure that its last shot would be the last shot, but getting a quality look was a different story.

Before we get to play-by-play, Kirby fills us in on what he originally designed.

“They were running like a tandem-and-three where they were really trying to face guard Dorfman, Horn and Shill and were playing like a two man zone against our big guy and Chris Hallowell,” said Kirkby. “I was trying to get a high ball screen and we were really to get Chris Hollowell on the block, who actually was wide open because the two guys that were in the zone helped to the ball.”

OK, so the plan was working, but the reality was different because when Dorfman came off the high screen and got into the lane, he had no angle to get the ball to Hallowell. The next option was to lay the ball back for Dorfman, who picks it up from there.

“When Cole drove, he drew my man and I came around for the curl. I kind of bobbled the ball, it was a tough catch, and then just try to do a pull up jumpshot,” said Shill, who got in the air and drew the foul from Orozco, his AAU teammate since the sixth grade. “I saw Chris coming out and I had to adjust my body and fortunately I got the foul call and made the free throws.”

Shill did make the free throws for the winning points as Tenafly's desperation heave bounced off the backboard to end it. A look at the numbers shows just how wild the fourth quarter was as Tenafly outscored Pascack Hills 27-18 in the period and the teams combined to shoot 31 free throws in the final eight minutes.

Brian Horn (15 points) was one of three Pascack Hills guards to finish in double figures.

Shill (22 points), Dorfman (19 points), and Horn (15 points) combined to scored 15 of the Cowboys fourth quarter points and the trio was a combined to make 9 of their 10 free throws. Pascack Hills (6-2 was 25 of 29 from the line in the game and 12 of 13 from the line in the fourth quarter.

Orozco's fourth quarter was ridiculous. He scored 19 of his game-high 33 in the period and was just about unguardable. Already able to go by smaller guards and post up smaller ones when the season began, Orozco has worked hard on his outside game and has added the pull-up 3-pointer to his arsenal, which makes him impossible to stop without fouling and he makes free throws at a tremendous percentage. He was not his usual self from the line on Saturday as he missed 3 of his 4 first half attempts, but made 4 of 4 in the third quarter and then 11 of 14 in the fourth.

Orozco was the only Tiger to finish in double digits as Cohen's 8 was the next highest total. Sobo and Hioki each finished with 6, and Marco Baratta added 4 for Tenafly, which had its six-game win streak snapped as it fell to 6-2 on the season. But one regular season game is not going to tell the tale of this season as, with Orozco, Tenafly is going to be a threat in the league title race and in every tournament it enters.

“Obviously I don't think we played our best in the first half, we gave up three 3s in the first quarter, we were down double digits at halftime and then we had Zach Rush and Steve [Sobo] foul out. I was in foul trouble and that is not something I am used to dealing with,” said Orozco, who had even more ball-handling responsibility due to an injury that kept point guard Tyler Garson out of action. “But this game is going to help us in the long run. Some kids got their feet wet in a big game, they got some experience, and we came all the way back to take the lead in the fourth quarter. Sure I would have liked to have won, but there are some positives that we can take out of here.”

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