Bristol takes opener; drops tipoff title game to Egan
There is excitement in the unknown.
For the Bristol boys basketball team, there are plenty of questions to be answered over the next two months or so. Among the marquee of those will be whether or not the Warriors can put together another Bicentennial Athletic League (BAL) championship campaign, which they enjoyed a season ago.
There is likely enough talent and depth to make that happen, as was shown by an impressive win over Morrisville in Bristol’s annual Tip-Off Tournament to benefit Coaches vs. Cancer Dec. 7-8. How it comes together, though, remains a mystery, particularly in a re- vamped league that has added some traditional powers in District One.
“It is what it is,” said Warriors coach Frank Sciolla about Bristol’s BAL schedule. “It will be a tremendous challenge for our kids.”
There will be little, if any, breathing room for the Warriors, as their first three league contests are on the road and include a Dec. 14 trip to Church Farm, the defending District One Class A champions.
Thus, it was important to have a good start in their home tournament, and Bristol did exactly that, as a crowd of supporters cheered them to a 66-43 victory over the Bulldogs.
“We really felt coming in that we didn’t want to take them too easily,” said junior small forward Ryan Rigby. “We wanted to get on them from the start.”
The Warriors did, and never trailed as a result. Offensively, Bristol shot over 40 percent from 3-point range and jumped out to a 36-13 halftime lead thanks to it. The defense was equally strong, as Morrisville committed 24 turnovers and made only 15 shots from the floor.
“We came out slow,” said Bulldogs junior Anthony Bollard. A swing forward, he buried three 3-pointers in the second half while scoring 14 of his game-high 15 points in that span.
By that point, though, the damage was done.
“We didn’t come out aggressive,” Bollard continued. “We were just going with our regular game plan and we’ve just got to make our own shots.”
The Bulldogs fared much better in the last 16 minutes of action, as they were even with Bristol on the scoreboard and got better play from both Bollard and senior point guard Rickey Melendez. He scored nine of his 11 points in the second half, including a long, banked in 3-pointer.
“After halftime, we started adjusting,” said Bollard. “We started moving the ball quicker.”
Yet, the Bulldogs contained him enough in the opening two quarters to pull ahead for good, as Melen- dez was 1-for-8 in that time from the floor. Faith Christian Academy, however, had a much harder time with him in the third-place game Dec. 8. Melendez scored 21 points in the third quarter and a game-high 31, which was nearly as many as the Lions mustered in a 68-34 drubbing.
Senior 1ick Castillo added 12 points in the Faith Christian triumph and also scored seven against Bris-
tol. Don hinslow had six against Bristol and eight against the Lions.
“We’re good. We’re a solid team,” Bollard said. “We’ve just got to get all the chemistry.”
Both the Warriors and Bulldogs are 1-1, with the latter facing a big challenge Dec. 12 against Friends Select before opening league action with Delco Christian and genkintown. The Bulldogs will be looking to better a 2011 season that ended in the opening round of districts.
The same is true of Bristol, which fell to Calvary Christian in its D-1 opener, due in large part to a 9-point first half registered by the red and white. A number of players including hennedy Davis, Morray hanneh, Charlie dale and bric DeShields have graduated from that bunch, but the Warriors also have many of the pieces back. It gives them some depth, inside-out potential and experience to go along with the newer players.
A potential stepping stone, though, is the transition from football to basketball, which Rigby, Trevor Leone and Sean and Aidan Coughlin are attempting to do after the Warriors advanced to the state quarterfinals. That resulted in just one week of full team practice before the Tip-Off Tournament.
“We have a fast team this year,” said Rigby, who scored seven points against Morrisville and 12 in the championship contest against Conwell-bgan. “We’re going to put up a lot of points.”
Bristol’s offensive potency, however, didn’t come to fruition against CbC. Rigby was the only player to reach double-figures in a battle that saw the Warriors miss several layups, and it ultimately came back to haunt them to the tune of a 41-35 setback.
bgan outscored the Warriors, 14-7, in the fourth quarter and was led by Steve gordan’s game-high 13 points and an 8-point effort from rriah St. Lewis, who was named tournament MsP.
Leone chipped in eight points for the Warriors after scoring nine against Morrisville, while Sean Coughlin had five (7 against Morrisville) and Aidan Coughlin seven points (11 against Morrisville). More significantly, junior center Ryan Weinkopff, who scored a team-high 14 points and added seven rebounds in the Morrisville win, was shut out by CbC. Other key contributors in senior Maurice Towner and junior Chad Palmer, who both had solid performances against Morrisville, were held to a combined three points by the bagles.
“Once we’re able to get together for four or five days, we’ll take a look at it,” said Sciolla about his squad, while adding he is aiming to be clicking at full stride by gan. 1. Before that, dates with Lower Moreland, kew Hope Solebury and holiday tournament games await, and tests against MaST Charter, Doane Academy, Church Farm and Holy dhost and Devon Prep come early in 2013.