By Ted Waddell
LOCH SHELDRAKE — January 31, 2006 – The Sullivan County Community College Generals (13-3 overall/8-1 Region XV) proverbially picked the feathers off the Falcons of Dutchess Community College 71-47 in Thursday night’s basketball game “Down in the Bunker” at Paul Gerry Fieldhouse on the SCCC campus.
Taking to the floor minus a couple of key players who are sidelined with injuries – sophomore guard Everage Richardson is out with a broken foot and sophomore guard Kevin Johnson is benched by a fractured kneecap – the home team hoopsters racked up a 34-15 halftime lead.
However, Dutchess CC (3-13) narrowed the SCCC lead to just 37-32 in the second half.
In the closing moments, Generals’ forward Jakar Wells electrified the sparse second semester crowd with a rim-hugging dunk. But a few moments later, a melee under the glass had SCCC Coach Chris DePew fuming as his players allowed a Falcon player to snatch the ball and get fouled in the process.
“In a close game, that missed two points and the foul could have really cost us,” DePew said.
Double-digit scorers for the Generals included: Josh Lott (19 points), Jason Jackson (16), Wells (15) and Jon Frasier (11).
Eli Rogers recorded a team-best 17 points for Dutchess CC.
Dutchess CC shot 72 percent at the free-throw line, while SCCC made only 3-of-11 (27 percent) of its foul shots.
“I think we played pretty well, holding a high-powered team to around 70 points,” said Dutchess CC Coach Joe Detz.
“Unfortunately, our offense kind of sputtered tonight… we didn’t get our ‘three’s’ as well as we should have, but we played a little bit better in the second half,” he added. “As a unit we did a pretty good job on defense, and Eli Rogers shot pretty well. We did a decent job, but we didn’t step up on offense.”
While happy with recording the ‘W,’ DePew said he was breathing a sigh of relief after Wednesday night’s victory over Post University JV in the Generals’ first game of the spring semester. DePew said that contest versus the Post JV team game “was like starting over all over again”, as Sullivan’s hoopsters didn’t live up to his expectations.
“Tonight our defense was tremendous… we played better defense than in the first semester, but are still struggling a bit on the offense end,” he said.
“When you lose your two best players to injuries, that tends to happen,” DePew added.
While he credited his reserves for stepping into the breach during the last couple of games, DePew offered a few words of advice for hoopsters with an eye for making the transition from the bench to a spot in the starting lineup.
“A lot of them have the talent, but they have to be able to take criticism, and some of them can’t and the fact that they can’t is going to limit their possibilities to play elsewhere – it’s starting to limit their possibilities now,” DePew said.
“If you can’t take a little criticism amongst a heap of good things… that’s a problem,” he added.
DePew credited the play of Lott “to keep shooting well,” Roberto Macklin for his athleticism and Jason Johnson for being able “to bang it inside.”
“We will have Everage [Richardson] and K.J. back for the tournament,” said DePew, making reference to the National Junior College Athletic Association (NJCAA) Region XV tourney which is scheduled to be played from March 3 through March 5 at SCCC.