On Friday, March 24th, the Frisch Cougars will play against the SAR Sting for a spot in the Tier I semifinals. These two teams faced off twice throughout the Yeshiva League season. Frisch took both of those games by a pretty large margin, but the Sting are primed for redemption in this matchup. Max Zakheim for Frisch and Akiva Schanzer for SAR, are arguably the two most talented players in the Yeshiva League. It should make for an exciting matchup.
The Cougars are coming off a win against Berman in the play-in. The game was close at the half, but the Cougars turned up the pressure in the third, going up by double digits and holding on to win 54-40. Zakheim and Isaac Schiffman were the two best players on the court in that game. They applied constant pressure on the defense, which broke down the defense play after play in the second half. Other than those two, it was a balanced attack from the Cougars with a plethora of other players contributing buckets here and there. The key to the win though was the defense. The 2-3 looked amazing. They limited Berman’s three point shooting and forced the ball out of the key players’ hands more often than not. It’s going to be a much harder task slowing down the SAR offense, but the Cougars are more than capable.
The Sting took down Mekor Chaim yesterday in the Tier I qualifier with a final score of 66-56, but that score is not indicative of how the game went. Mekor Chaim gave this team problems throughout the entire game until a late fourth quarter outburst by the Sting. Obviously, Schanzer is the engine of the team and he was phenomenal in this one, but it was the big man, Jonothan Itzhaki who came up big down the stretch of the game for them. They are going to need production like this from the “other guys” on the team if they want a chance of beating Frisch for the first time this year. The defense is going to have to be better as well. Against Mekor Chaim they were able to get away with some defensive lapses, but against a very good Cougars offense, that won’t work.
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