Huskies come up short against Onteora

By Mike Zummo
Posted 1/18/23

Just a day removed from a win in which they scored nearly 90 points, the Highland boys’ basketball team struggled offensively on Wednesday in a 44-41 loss to the Onteora Eagles at Highland High …

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Huskies come up short against Onteora

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Just a day removed from a win in which they scored nearly 90 points, the Highland boys’ basketball team struggled offensively on Wednesday in a 44-41 loss to the Onteora Eagles at Highland High School.

“It was one of those games where we came off of last night’s game where we shot well and played well, we came into the gym today, and it’s a different team and a little bit different defense, and the shots weren’t falling,” Highland coach Mike Milliman said. “You’ve got to take that into consideration.”

The early part of the season had been a struggle for the Huskies, as they lost their first six games of the season before outshooting Mount Academy, 87-66, on January 10 for their first win of the season.

The win temporarily put a jolt into the Huskies’ season.
“It changed the whole attitude of the team,” Milliman said. “They were sky high last night. They played well, and I was hoping that would carry over to today. I’m not saying it didn’t because they were still into it. But when we did go against a team playing a little bit different defense, you’ve got to adjust for it.”

On Wednesday, the shots didn’t fall, and even worse, the Huskies were unable to hit their free throws, despite the Eagles consistently putting them on the line. The Huskies only hit 8 of 23 shots from the foul line, and chucked up about 20 3-point shots and only hit three of them.

“I said to the kids, ‘when you miss all those free throws, it’s not necessarily the ones you miss at the end of the game,’” Milliman said. “’It’s the ones you miss during the game that enables things to happen,’ and we missed them through the whole game.”

Despite all that, the Huskies only trailed by four points, 21-17, at halftime, and finally went on a run in the third quarter after trailing by seven points.

Reid Berean scored on a putback, and then Matt Dubois hit a layup, and Jeremy Angelone knocked down a 3-pointer to tie the game at 29-29, as the Huskies built some momentum. After Angelone and Onteora’s Andrew Zygmunt traded baskets, Angelone grabbed a steal and gave the Huskies a 33-31 lead at the end of the third quarter.

“The emotion of getting some steals, and you get excited and you get some points,” Milliman said. “That’s one thing I told them. It’s a mental game, and I think we lost our mental focus a little bit.”

The Huskies also lost the lead in the fourth quarter as Zygmunt tied the game with a spin move in the paint. Then with 3:30 to go, he gave the Eagles the lead for good with a putback and then knocked down a 3-pointer. All of a sudden, Onteora led by five.

The Huskies pulled to within one on a putback by Josh Bishop, but Zygmunt hit two key free throws with 6.5 seconds to go to finish the game.

“We’ve got to learn that it’s a 32-minute game and we have to play all 32 minutes,” Milliman said. “I talked to them about peaks and valleys. Early in the year, we had a lot of valleys. Last night, we had a lot of peaks, and we hope to get those peaks a little more often. Today, that didn’t happen.”