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Andrew Robinson, a former PSA Prep basketball player and a member of the school’s Athletic Hall of Fame who has played professionally overseas, was pretty nervous before last Wednesday’s varsity basketball game.
It was, after all, his first game as a coach.
“Going from a player to being a coach is a whole different ballgame,” he said. “As a player, you have a control over the outcome of the game, making shots, getting stops. As a coach, you’re just on the sideline watching everything unfold. You just want to make sure you’ve prepared the guys.”
The guys came through for Robinson, as Ilan Da Silva-Alp knocked down five 3-pointers on his way to a team-high 17 points as PSA held on for a 55-54 win over Busche Academy. The Mustangs led 51-41 with six-and-a-half minutes to play after one of those Da Silva-Alp 3’s but Busche closed on a run and had a chance to take the lead in the final seconds.
“I think they did well,” Robinson said afterward. “They executed well and played hard. We still have a long way to go, I have a lot of things I have to improve on as a coach as far as preparing the guys.
“I’ll take all the responsibility on that myself…I have to prepare them better for late-game situations and talking them through what we do when we’re up one with eight seconds on the clock. But I’m glad we get to improve with a win as opposed to a loss.”
Martyn Poliuchovic finished with 13 points and Vlad Vetrov added 10 for PSA.
Game 2 didn’t go as well Friday, as the Mustangs didn’t have enough to matchup with a bigger St. Thomas More team in a 54-39 road loss. Da Silva-Alp finished with 11 points, Vetrov nine, and Poliuchovic seven.
Elite Team
PSA’s Elite basketball team opened its season last week as well, winning two of its three games.
Big man Carter Mungin scored 31 points and pulled down 17 rebounds Monday in a resounding 94-74 win over Commonwealth in its season opener.
Jalen Claude made six of 11 3-point attempts on his way to 24 points, and Tony Williams added 18 points, six assists, five rebounds, and four steals. Octavius Wheeler had a strong all-around game as well, chipping in with six points, seven rebounds, four assists, and a pair of steals.
PSA dismantled Hoosac the next day, as Williams and Claude both scored 17 points in a 102-67 win. The outcome was never in doubt; the Mustangs scored the first nine points of the game, led 30-6 eight minutes in, and held a 65-26 advantage at halftime.
“I think we executed a lot better, and our defensive intensity was up to where we wanted it to be,” coach Andy Lemoine said. “This is a good group of guys, and they play hard and listen. And you see the results of what can happen when we do those things.”
Mungin finished with 16 points while Jude Gonzalez scored 12, and Sebastian Fermin and Javelle Epps both chipped in with nine points.
Mungin had another big game Thursday, finishing with 27 points and 18 rebounds, but PSA’s rally from a big deficit couldn’t quite get over the hump and the team suffered its first loss, 98-90 to Our Savior Lutheran.
PSA trailed 78-65 with a little more than seven minutes to go before mounting a comeback, getting within two points at 83-81 with about four minutes to play, but that was as close as they could get. Williams had 20 points, eight assists, and five rebounds, Epps finished with 18 points and six boards, and Claude chipped in 16 points.
Girls’ Team
The girls’ team returned to the court after two weeks without a game. The first game back was a struggle offensively, and despite losses in both games, coach Greg Canzater liked what he saw in the second game.
One night after the Mustangs scored just 23 points in a road loss at Hoosac, Carlota Lopez had 10 points in a 39-34 home loss to St. George’s.
“I feel like we’re close,” Canzater said after his team fell to 0-3. “Not just to winning a game but in a lot of the things that we’ve been working on since we got here in August, really. I think defensively we made one of our biggest strides. I thought we were all over the place, intense, we got more vocal in the second half. That’s what kept us in the mix.
“We struggled to make baskets…how many times did it rim out? But keep shooting. Allowing players to feel through some of their mistakes, there are some things that we need to figure out, and some of our main players can do that over the course of the game.”
Stephen Nalbandian
Sports Information Director
Putnam Science Academy
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