SPRING VALLEY – The Hall High School boys basketball team came into this odd, abbreviated season setting the nets on fire, and they went out exactly the same way. They are, after all, Red Devils.
After their red-hot shooting burned LaSalle-Peru in a 98-88 loss in their opener back in early February, the Red Devils finished this unprecedented campaign in the same fashion, with another strong night from the 3-point line upending a tough Erie-Prophetstown squad, 73-56, here on Friday night.
Hall peppered the nets with 13 treys on the night — including three each from Mac Resetich, Drake Garland and Ethan Plym — and doubled up the visitors in rebounding 46-23 on the night to rally from a 12-point first-period deficit and outscore the Panthers, 63-37 over the final three stanzas.
Plym had 15 points and Trez Rybarczyk, Resetich and Garland each added 14 as coach Mike Filippini’s club ends with a 5-7 mark.
“Yeah, against L-P, we played like this,” Filippini said with a chuckle. “In the first quarter, I don’t know if I called a timeout or if it was a mask timeout when it was 8-0, but I said to the coaches it felt like 80-0 because they came out with a lot of emotion, a lot of energy and forced like three straight turnovers. We kept telling them that [EP] is not going to make every shot, just keep whittling the lead down and eventually we’ll be right there, and they did. Like they have all year, the kids didn’t quit.
“I’m so happy for the seniors. That was a really great group to coach and they’ve had so much stuff taken away from them like a lot of people have. For them to go out like this is something they’ll remember for a long time.”
It ended well, but it started horribly for the Devils, who turned the ball over four times and missed their first four shots all in the first two minutes. While Connor Sibley was popping in seven points for the Panthers, Hall managed only a Resetich 3-ball in 10 tries over the first 5 minutes.
A trey by Bryce Rosenow with 1 minute, 23 seconds left in the period made it 19-7 EP.
It was then that Trez Rybarczyk stepped up big. His three-point play by to end the quarter and later his first of two 3-pointers started and ended a 13-3 burst that put the hosts right back it.
Hall later closed the second stanza and started the third with a 21-5 rally with Plym pouring in 13 of those points, the last a triple at the 5:26 mark making it 41-34 Devils.
Erie-Prophetstown wouldn’t go away, using six points by Kolby Franks to slice the deficit to just 43-42 four minutes later. However, a trey by Resetich, a drive by Plym and a 3 by Garland widened the gap to 51-43 Hall heading to the fourth.
That’s where the Devils got even hotter, sinking 9-of-14 shots from the field and getting six points each from Resetich and Plym to slam the door. The home team shot 39.3% (13-of-33) from the arc and 46.6% (28-of-60) overall. Rybarczyk totaled nine caroms and Resetich seven in the win.
“I told the kids that this was a good team that they beat tonight,” Filippini said. “It sounds like and excuse, but I admitted it to the kids that it took me a while to learn what we were best at. Not getting to see the new (varsity) kids much — we got the call on a Wednesday and eight days later, we’re playing L-P – so COVID entered into this for us and for everybody.
“We thought, because we were so small, we could play zone and press, but we were terrible at it. We switched to man-to-man halfway through the year and that was much better. We played much better defense from the second Princeton game [Feb. 26] on.”
Source: The Daily Chronicle
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