By: Mohammed Ramzanali
Since the preseason everyone knew that senior rec ball star Shaw Taylor was going to be an early league MVP candidate. Having two back to back games with 20+ point scoring it will be hard for teams to stop Taylor on the offensive side of the ball. With Scott Morin and John Taylor’s strong coaching and continued offensive success from Taylor and all players like senior Ryan Alexander, junior Matty Morin and sophomore Zack Walker it’ll be hard to knock off Team Morin from the top spot.
Team Barry, despite being doubted in the preseason, has emerged as one of the better teams in the league granted it is only the end of week 1. It’s actually kind of crazy how they have been ranked so high after allowing an alright Team Meyer score 60+ points and 44 points from a single player. But a win’s a win and they are rolling at 2-0. Will the points allowed be less once Joe Fitzgerald returns, by all means yes but until then they are going to have to pick up the slack to be an actual premier team in this highly competitive rec ball league. We can’t forget Fitzy’s 20+ point performance in their season opener and his defensive rebounding. All these things, in addition to Spencer Nagi’s versatile, both sides of the ball style of play and Jackson Barry’s and Eli Richman’s added offensive prowess will absolutely make this team unstoppable.
After coming off of a win against Team Ruhl, Team Smith wins again against Team Guillbeau. The game was tighter than it should’ve been from what I saw. Team Smith comparing them from game one to game two was two different teams but like i said earlier a win’s a win. The scoring was fairly spread out between senior Luke McGrath, senior Cord Callahan, senior CJ Smith and junior Declan Gardner but it won’t be enough as Callahan has to emerge as one of main offensive threats for this team. His mere 10 points will not cut it if his team wants to make a legitimate run. As for McGrath, his head is in the right place after pulling up three feet behind the arc with only seconds left to knock down the game winning 3-pointer. After the game he said, “My soul left my body with that shot. I felt like Jordan!” If it wasn’t for his clutch shooting the ranking would’ve been much much more different than they are now.
Team Hillier in their first game of the season came back to win against a very good Vanheest team. Junior Eugene Meleshkivich and senior Ryan Liu led their teams in scoring and brought them back from a double-digit deficit which went into overtime and eventually they beat Team Vanheest. Besides that there is not much to say. Junior Tyler Stott has to get more involved in the offense as his presence on the defense is known. Meleskevich and Liu have to keep up taking high quality shots if they want to be competing with teams versus coming back from deficits.
Team Vanheest, who I mentioned earlier, had probably the toughest loss of the season being up by double digits then giving up that lead, then going into overtime and losing it their. Besides that the team is looking very strong with twin brothers Chris and Greg Amador running the show on offense and Jack Vanheest supplying the much needed insurance to seal off quarters, halves and games, as we saw in their first game. When it comes down to the nitty-gritty, this team will not be able to cruise in this league with that type of performance. They really are going to have to pick it up in the coming weeks.
Team’s Kelley, Ruhl and Riela all have the utmost potential to be a top-5 team but they really have to buckle down and in the next couple of weeks to become premier teams. They all have shots in the coming weeks to be where they want to be but they have to take advantage of every opportunity and close out games when it’s needed. As for Team Bersani, Philbrook and especially Khoury it is going to be a very very very long season for them. They really need to figure out what works for them on offense and they need to settle down on defense and I can see them being ranked in the top 10. Although, Team Bersani does show a lot of hope in players like sophomore Ryan Nichols and Ryan French and freshman Pete Bersani. This young combo can do some damage in the backcourt. As for Senior Sam Correnti he has got to really find what works for him and then go to work with that. He has been under a lot of pressure these last two games but soon he’ll get into a rhythm like none other and those 20 point games will be coming his way.
