Goldbacks overcome 16-point deficit to beat Kingston

By Mike Zummo
Posted 2/19/20

 

The Newburgh Free Academy boys’ basketball team trailed the Kingston Tigers by 12 points at halftime. At one point, they trailed by as many as 16.Yet, no one in the Goldbacks’ …

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Goldbacks overcome 16-point deficit to beat Kingston

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The Newburgh Free Academy boys’ basketball team trailed the Kingston Tigers by 12 points at halftime. At one point, they trailed by as many as 16.
Yet, no one in the Goldbacks’ locker room was nervous.

“I wasn’t nervous,” said Amarri Tice, who scored a game-high 23 points. “I knew we were going to come out strong out in the second half. We did and we did what we want to do.”

Newburgh coach Frank Dinnocenzio wasn’t either.

“After the first half, we were only down 12 and I thought we would be down like 20,” he said. “I was like, ‘we’re only down 12 points; we’re still in this.’ It was energy. Just turned some energy up.”

The Goldbacks’ energy smothered the Tigers’ offense in the third quarter as they outscored Kingston by 22 points, on their way to a 66-51 win on Friday night at the Kate Walton Field House.

The Goldbacks held the Tigers off the board for an entire quarter, starting in the second. Between the time Clayton Pattillo hit two free throws with 1:26 left in the second quarter and Chapman Parker’s layup with 21 seconds left in the third, the Goldbacks scored 27 points turning a 15-point deficit into a 10-point lead at the end of the third quarter.

“Our defensive intensity (went up),” said Nakai Wheeler, who finished with 10 points and wreaked havoc on defense. “We had to pressure them. Take them out of their game and we had to push them because they just wanted to set up and run their stuff. We just had to make them go as fast as they can.”

Once the Goldbacks, started running and scoring in transition, their own shots started falling. Tice hit two 3-pointers while struggling through the first half but hit three in the second half.

“They were hitting in second,” Tice said. “We just found a way to shoot the ball. We pushed the ball more to get fast breaks.”

They also found a way to quiet Kingston’s Brady Short, who led the Tigers with 21 points, 16 of which came in the first half. He hit 3 of his 4 3-pointers in the first half.

Pattillo scored 18 points and knocked down 3 of his 4 3-point baskets in the first half.

“We figured out how to stop the 3s,” Tice said. “They were hitting a lot of 3s in the first half. We found a way to score on offense and we just came out strong in the second half.”

The Goldbacks struggled against the Tigers’ zone in the first half as the Tigers got off to a roaring start, building a 22-6 lead early in the second quarter. Most of the Goldbacks’ 3-point attempts were off the mark.

“We were settling,” Dinnocenzio said. “When you settle that’s what happens. If you don’t settle for a jump shot and you get the ball inside, and you let everybody else get inside. We’re good against the zone and I was surprised the first half was like that.”

The win locked the Goldbacks (17-1, 6-0 OCIAA-I) into the top seed in the upcoming Section 9 Class AA playoffs.

“This is not an easy section,” Dinnocenzio said. “Everybody knows everybody.

They know what they do. They know what they can’t do. They try to do the best they can to stop the other team and any given night, Kingston stays hot, we’re in trouble.”