It was an excellent first night at the Grown Up Sports Thursday Night Men’s Recreational Basketball league at Lutheran High North in the Heights near downtown Houston. Let’s take a look at how the games unfolded.
Defending Champions v. Matt Bullards On Parade
The first game of the night saw the Defending Champions take on Matt Bullard’s On Parade. The defending champions got out of the gates slow and never seemed to recover. Joe Bell sent the Champions the opening bell punch with a barrage of threes and drives, looking more like Dan Langhi in his prime than Matt Bullard, and it sent the Defending Champions reeling. Tim Swetlick, “The Antiguan Assasain” as he is known to his geographically challenged friends, pounded the boards allowing nary a second chance bucket. Eric Pena did his best to lead his squad to battle back, slicing through the defense to get to the free throw line and set up his teammates for easy buckets. Unfortunately, the shots weren’t falling and the Champions showed their fatigue and faded down the stretch. The Bullards were in fine form and if they can keep hitting shots at the clip they were, will be too much for most teams to handle on their best day.
GUS Player of the Game: Joe Bell (Bullards): 20 points, 4 rebounds, 1 assist
Matt Bullard wins 59-28 (see Box Score)
G.S.D. v. The Scalabrine’s
The second battle of the night saw the gang of GUS veterans in G.S.D. face off against the most beloved team in the league… the Scalabrine’s. The Scalabrine’s set to start the game off right, but G.S.D.’s Jason Gardner wasn’t having any of it as he decided to have his own shooting session, nailing three after three from way out and driving to the bucket with ease for 16 first half points. Enraged, the Scalabrine’s mounted a comeback behind the offense of Kyle Kurtz and the inside strength of Mike Brownstein,. But just like the pink numbers adorning their jerseys, the wheels seemed to come off as the assault of the Jason’s continued, this time with Jason Sigaran dominating the boards and Jason Loh, exhibiting excellent body control, driving through the paint for easy buckets. Throw in Hak Leav nailing heaving jumpers from deep, and G.S.D. lived up to their name and Got Sh Done. Luckily, the Scalabrine’s still lead the league in total SWAG points.
GUS Player of the Game: Jason Gardner (G.S.D.): 24 points (9/14 fgs) 6 rebounds, 3 assists, 1 steal
G.S.D. wins 72-44 (see Box Score)
The H.A.T.A.S. v. Blue Chips
The third game of the night pit the mighty Blue Chips, once favorably compared to the 1992 Dream Team against The H.A.T.A.S. Blue Chips, missing some of their can’t miss prospects, looked to keep the game close early and finish strong. They can consider mission complete for the first part, as the game was within reach after the first half. Unfortunately it was a sloppy start to the second half that caused everything to come apart at the seams. Whether it was lock down defense by the H.A.T.A.S. or it was fatigue, the H.A.T.A.S. found themselves beneficiaries of several steals (18 total) and an APB has been placed on the entire team as a result. Capitalizing on the opportunities, the H.A.T.A.S. moved the ball well on the fast break chances and distributed the scoring evenly, creating problems for the Blue Chips defensively. In the end, the costly errors were just too much for the Chips to overcome as the H.A.T.A.S. secured to solid victory.
GUS Player of the Game: Brandon Warfield (HATAS): 12 points 4/6 fgs, 6 rebounds, 1 assists, 1 steal
H.A.T.A.S. win 54-20 (see Box Score)
Dark Thunder v. Block Party (B.P.)
The final match-up of the night looked to be an epic one on paper. With BP returning after last season’s strong finish and Dark Thunder, one of the pre-season picks to make a deep run in the playoffs, we knew both sides had talent. The first half went according to the script, especially as Dylan Flosi hit the buzzer beating three to end regulation with the Dark Thunder down just a few. But BP really blew things open in the second half, going on a huge run to open things up. With Jason Belovich knocking down the long range treys, Greg “Junkyard” Preston cleaning up the trash on the inside, Cable Warren giving the glue and Rod Walker with his solid all around performance, B.P. really came together in the second half, and looks to be the team to beat after the first night of action.
BP wins 72- 29 (see Box Score here)
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And that’s all I wrote. Be sure to Like Us on Facebook for updates on when recaps and stats are posted as well as more links to pictures.
-Favor