It was a night of easy victories and one that went from being close, to being easy, to almost slipping away in Week 3 of the 2016 Spring season in the Montvale Ultimate Hoops League.

To start the night, Justice League and the Bergen Tropics were going tit for tat in the early going as they were tied at 8 a-piece 5 minutes into the game and then again at 16’s at 12 minutes left in the half after back to back offensive rebound put backs by Alex Benisatto (15 pts, 5 reb). The back and forth continued throughout the half as a Paul Gashi (17 pts) 3-pointer with 3:30 left before halftime was answered by an Evan Schumer (26 pts, 5 ast) three. Then when Paul Gashi drove to the basket to capture the lead, he was once again answered Schumer with a drive of his own to give Justice League the lead again. It wouldn’t stand though, as Dan Gashi (18 pts, 5 reb) drained a 3-pointer to give the Tropics a 33-31 lead at the break.

The Tropics started to expand their lead with a Dan Gashi reverse layup with 16 minutes left in the game giving them a 37-33 lead and a Paul Gashi and-1 play giving them a 40-33 lead. The Tropics lead would push up to double digits and hold steady for most of the half, despite Justice League throwing on a full court press with just over 5 minutes left in the game, until Justice League started fouling with around 3:30 left in the game. The Tropics only shot 50% from the free throw line so little by little the lead dwindled until a Schumer 3-pointer with 27 seconds left in the game tied things up at 62. On the Tropics possession that followed, Dan Gashi missed his attempt to win the game but James Kopfensteiner came flying in for the offensive rebound and, after getting fouled, he made both free throws to take the lead with just 11 seconds left in the game. After Justice League missed their attempt to tie, Benisatto grabbed the rebound and made both his free throws to seal the Tropics 66-62 win.

In the second game, Old School got back to what they did in their first game of the year and got the offense going quickly to earn a 6-2 lead. The Wise Guys fought back and got the lead down to 10-9 with 16 minutes left before the break. The lead was extended again by jumpers by Justin Michalek (19 pts, 4 reb, 3 ast) and Chris Brundage (15 pts, 4 ast) to give Old School a 5 point advantage with 14 minutes left in the half. With 8:50 left before the break Michalek connected again, this time from behind the arc, to extend Old School’s lead to double digits at 24-14. The lead was further extended to 36-21 at the break after Michalek drained another jumper.

Things were much tighter in the second half with Aidan Rezvani (15 pts, 4 reb) and Devin Agic (10 pts, 4 ast, 3 reb) trying to lead a comeback but the Wise Guys were still outscored. Old School’s defense with Thomas Alexiou (12 pts, 17 reb) and Mike McClendon (10 pts, 9 ast) made sure that the Wise Guys wouldn’t produce enough to cut into their lead, was they only shot 32% from the field, 20% from behind the arc and 50% from the free throw line. Old School wasn’t much better from the field (25%) and actually worse from the line (27%) but they used great ball movement to find the best opportunities (21 ast as a team) and make them count (48% from the field) and that was enough for an easy 64-45 win.

The final game wasn’t pretty for either side. The GOATs were forced to play without leading scorer James Miccio and it costs them dearly as they could only muster 3 points for the whole first half, although still only round themselves down 13 to Uncle Chubby's at halftime. In the second half Sebastian Stryker (8 pts, 5 reb) and Marselis Middleton (7 pts, 6 reb) were able to lead the GOATs to score more than 5 times their first half output but Uncle Chubby’s also increased their scoring output behind Steve Steiger (14 pts, 3 stl, 3 ast) so the GOATs couldn't even begin to try to catch up. While Uncle Chubby’s wasn’t lighting things up at 27% from the field and 13% from 3, it was still more than enough to outscore the GOATs 16% from the field, 7% from 3 and 29% from the free throw line and cruise to an uneventful 37-19 victory.

To see the rest of the highlights from Spring 2016’s Week 3 games, go to our YouTube page

Before the night started, Scott Ferrall caught up with Michael Slaten to talk about
how he was among the league leaders after a big game in Week 2