Juanita Sanchez too much for Pilgrim in division battle

Posted 2/20/14

The Pilgrim boys’ basketball team was playing its best basketball of the season heading into Monday night’s marquee showdown with Juanita Sanchez at home.

But while the Pats were certainly hot …

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Juanita Sanchez too much for Pilgrim in division battle

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The Pilgrim boys’ basketball team was playing its best basketball of the season heading into Monday night’s marquee showdown with Juanita Sanchez at home.

But while the Pats were certainly hot – winning seven of their last eight – nobody in the state is hotter than the Cavaliers.

Pilgrim couldn’t keep up.

With newly eligible sophomore point guard Miguel Prieto leading the charge, Juanita jumped out to a 21-4 lead less than five minutes into the game and never came close to giving it up. When the dust settled, the Cavaliers had a 93-60 win, their seventh straight. All of those wins have come since Prieto joined the lineup.

Harry Calderon scored 25 points, Prieto added 23 to go along with 12 assists and Jeremy Suero pitched in with 20. Pilgrim was led by Chris Duchesneau’s 17, but the Pats were essentially out of the game right from the opening tip.

“Juanita came out flying and we did not match their intensity to start the game,” said Pilgrim head coach Mike Batalon.

The game was a battle for first place in Division III-Central, which Juanita came in leading with a 10-4 record. Pilgrim was just behind at 9-4, and was looking to avenge a 70-54 loss to the Cavaliers on Dec. 20, the team’s first league game of the year.

Pilgrim has found its footing since December and is certainly a different team two months later.

Juanita was different too.

“He’s a point guard,” Juanita head coach Antone Gray said of Prieto. “Point G.O.D., that’s what I call him. He’s a great kid on and off the floor. He just makes us so much better, drives and kicks. He’s great defensively. He really helps us, makes us go.”

The Pats were overwhelmed early on. Juanita hit nine of its 13 three-pointers in the first half. Pilgrim turned the ball over against Juanita’s aggressive full-court man defense on seven of its first 12 possessions, and the Cavaliers hardly missed once they got the ball. They put an emphasis on the fast break, and it worked to perfection.

“We talked about it, just being really aggressive defensively,” Gray said. “That was the best defensive game we put together. We put 60 points up in the first half and most of it was from the defensive end – getting steals, being in the passing lanes, being active on the defensive end.”

Every time Pilgrim did something positive, Juanita was there to answer back. Duchesneau scored on a drive to make it 21-6 before Suero scored inside to make it a 17-point game again. With the score the same, Duchesneau buried a three that got the crowd back into the game, but Suero immediately hit a three in transition off a perfect pass from Prieto to silence the noise.

At that point, Juanita just took off. Already leading 26-9, it went on a 20-4 run to completely put the game out of reach halfway through the first half.

Suero – who has made the most three-pointers in the state – buried three of his five three-pointers on the night during that stretch. Prieto scored two points, Frailin Francisco added four, Jason Baez scored two and Luis Reyes did as well.

With 5:27 to play, Juanita led 46-13.

“Their defense fed their offense and they kept their intensity up,” Batalon said. “We couldn’t match their intensity in the first half.”

With Prieto back in the lineup, Juanita has three of the top seven scorers in the state. Calderon leads the state with 26.3 points per game, Prieto is fifth at 21.8 and Suero is seventh at 20.

As a whole, the Cavaliers are the highest-scoring team in D-III and the second-highest scoring team in the state. In their last seven games, they’ve scored 78, 82, 99, 71, 85, 82 and 83 points.

To make matters worse for the Pats, Juanita forced 25 turnovers on Monday, including 13 in the first half.

“We have three 20-point scorers,” Gray said. “Calderon is the leading scorer in the state and Suero leads the state in three-pointers made. Miguel just makes us go. We go as he goes – he finds Calderon in transition and Suero against the zone, he just knocks them down. He’s the best shooter in the state.”

The game was never in doubt the rest of the way, as Pilgrim went into halftime trailing 60-24.

“Then we’re playing for pride and we’re also playing to get better,” Batalon said. “We’ve got 16 minutes to try to get better and match their intensity and it was much better in the second half.”

Pilgrim actually out-scored Juanita 36-33 in the second half, but it never got closer than 29 points, and that was only at 89-60 in the final minute.

To go with Duchesneau’s 17 points, Ryan Morris had 14 and Letrelle Johnson had 11.

The loss essentially ended Pilgrim’s chances of a III-Central championship, but the Pats are still in good playoff position. Right now they’d be the No. 7 seed in the D-III playoffs, and they have four games left on the schedule.

They were scheduled to host 4-9 Toll Gate on Wednesday, with the results unavailable at press time and then travel to unbeaten East Greenwich on Thursday at 7 p.m.

Next week, they’ll play North Smithfield and Warwick Vets, two games that could be very important in the race for seeding. North Smithfield is 6-7, while Vets is 7-6.

“I think we learned tonight that we’ve got to match teams’ intensity,” Batalon said. “We’ve got to come out playing hard, playing tough in a playoff-like atmosphere.”

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