Young Core A Pleasant Surprise For Coach Sully

Heading into the 2010-2011 season, chances of Walter Panas surging into the league's upper crust seemed nil.

Following the mass exodus of ballers (June 2010 graduation helped bottom-out the cabinets of Shawn Sullivan's team), success in 2010-2011 seemed about as likely as Charlie Sheen turning down a bottle of Cristal.

The team was struck with another off-season blow when high-flying forward Brian Daniels transferred to Briarcliff during the off-season. Sullivan was left with a fresh crop of unproven players and a serious dearth of experience.

An infusion of J.V. kids and question marks--none of whom had been battle-tested on the Varsity level--were written off from the jump-start.

Yet the youth movement at Walter Panas was completed early and the young guns have opened eyes while simultaneously muting all the skeptics and self-proclaimed basketball gurus who surfaced.

The Panthers' neophytes got their varsity teeth cut quick and turned heads during a solid start.

"We didn't know what to expect heading into this season," said junior guard Zac Preuss, who's been an immediate plug in the backcourt and key facilitator of the Panthers' vaunted transition game.

"In that situation, it was either we were going to go 0-in-whatever to start, or we were going to use our experience to our advantage. We have really good chemistry, a lot of us played our freshman and sophomore years on the J.V. and had success on that level and it has definitely carried over."

Preuss, a cheetah in transition and calming influence with the rock in his hands, utilized every weapon at his disposal Friday night, en route to a wire-to-wire 74-40 bludgeoning of PUTNAM VALLEY. The win completed a season sweep of the Valley, whose season seems to be spiraling closer and closer into the abyss.

The ultra-young Tigers have dropped seven of their last eight and will need two out of their next three to qualify for the playoffs for the second consecutive season. The task is more daunting when you peruse through the box scores of some of the Tigers' recent games.

Panas' Vaughn Dweck dropped 15 points, Bobby Toub submitted 13, and high-scoring big Javier Espinosa---who has returned following eligibility issues that kept him sidelined added nine to the no-mercy shellacking.

Espinosa, who the Panthers feature down low (Espinosa established himself as the go-to-guy early in the season as he dropped 23 on Eastchester, hung a 22-spot on Dobbs Ferry, and lit up Tom Nelligan's boys at John Jay for 18), gives the Panthers a psychological lift at the right time. The playoffs are right around the corner.

"That's a real big lift for us," said Preuss of the big fella's return.

"Javier is our big guy down low and we need him for the playoffs. Basically, what's been going for us has been our fast break game. For a while, we didn't have our big guys and needed to thrive in transition. Now he brings a big scoring presence down low, even though he's only about 6-foot-1, or 6-foot-2. It's a huge lift for us."

Panas worked their way into a washout in the start of the third quarter.
Preuss' reverse layup kick-started a 7-0 run capped off by a deep three-pointer from Dweck, who has taken scoring matters into his own hands this season.

In the fourth quarter, the bulge snowballed.

The Panthers then executed their trademark running game, building a fattening 33-point lead on a pretty runner that Preuss flipped in.

Panas' lead swelled to 36 with 4:14 remaining, topping out at 38 shortly afterwards.

"We've got 8th, 9th and 10th graders all playing quality minutes for us," said Smith, when asked to assess the youth movement at Putnam Valley.

"You know what, they were doing OK for a while there, I mean Walter Panas has a very solid team this year. They're an aggressive team and we had to confront that physicality. Their half court sets didn't bother us as much as their fast breaking and rebounding. That's what really killed us tonight."

Now, Smith has a major challenge cooking on his front burner.

If Putnam Valley can capture two out of its next three, Smith might have a chance of leaving the hot seat the coach currently finds himself sitting on.
A playoff berth hangs in the balance.

"We need to win to out of our next three," Smith said. "That's going to be a challenge but we'll see if we're up for it."

Putnam Valley didn't collapse until the second quarter, when Panas reeled off a smoking 14-1 spurt that ignited a revved-up crowd.

The Panther lead ballooned to 11, albiet Jon Warden sliced it to six on a pair of free throws.

You could hear Panas' offense hum as they erupted in quick-hit fashion, breaking the game open.

A floater by the elusive Dweck sparked the aforementioned surge, giving Sully's Tigers a commanding 35-17 edge with 1:08 remaining in the first half. The run was capped off by a bucket from Bobby Toub.

Toub splashed a trey from the right wing moments before the buzzer sounded, pumping Panas' commanding lead to 40-19.

Steven Mazzerisi scored 12 to pace Putnam Valley (3-12). Brandon Schmelmer added 10. Warden chipped in with six.

With all the word about Brewster's recent success, MAHOPAC delivered a resounding 59-44 thumping of BREWSTER, reminding folks that they are a legitimate contender for the title in an immensely evenly-matched league.

The Indians (12-3) thrived with relative balance in the scorebook and the augmented bench depth, which is what you get when nine seniors who have been playing together for as long as they can recall collectively realize this is their last dance as varsity basketball players.