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 (Photo by Bill Allen/NJ SportAction) caption:
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Drained by Emotional Turmoil, PHS Boys' Hoops Drops Opener
By Bill Alden
With its season opener just days away, the Princeton High boys' basketball team should have been focused last week on such matters as perfecting its half-court offense or improving its press.
Instead, the PHS players were struggling with personal tragedy as they learned that senior teammate Rich Wilson had been seriously wounded after being shot in the back in an incident in Trenton on December 12.
With Wilson fighting for his life in a Trenton hospital, PHS head coach Dave Kosa knew that basketball had to be put on the backburner as his charges struggled to deal with the incident.
"It's been emotional, obviously," said Kosa, whose club found about the shooting a day after it occurred. "We've talked about it and we've stuck together. That's all we can do. The kids are doing OK."
In fact, the team decided to use basketball as a therapy to help deal with the situation. ³We had a scrimmage on Monday and I asked them if they wanted to play," recalled Kosa, who is in his third year guiding the Little Tigers.
"All of them said yes, they wanted to play for Rich. It was actually good that they were able to get their minds off of it. All we can do is to stick together. It's really hard to put everything into words right now."
Taking the court last Friday for its season opener against visiting Lawrence, PHS showed a special togetherness. PHS jumped out to a 14-10 lead over the taller Cardinals at the end of the first quarter.
Midway through the second period, the game was knotted at 20-20. Lawrence, however, went on a 12-2 run to end the half and put the Little Tigers in a 10-point hole at the break.
PHS fought valiantly but it never got closer than 11 points from the middle of the third quarter as Lawrence cruised to a 61-43 win.
In assessing the opening night contest, Kosa gave kudos to both teams. "Give Lawrence credit, they did a fine job, I think they were more physical than we were," said Kosa, who got strong performances from Anthony Brown and Ben Guervil as the two juniors each scored 16 points.
"We did the best we could in the first half. They put a little bit of a run on us in the second quarter. We made some turnovers and we didn't keep our composure so things sort of got away from us. We hung tough."
The game turned into a valuable learning experience for some of PHS' varsity neophytes. "I've got some young players and with Marcus [Brown] not playing, we didn't have any seniors on the court," explained Kosa, who gave minutes last Friday to such untested players as juniors Casey Huckel, Clinton Winder, Will Rogers, and Dan Mawn together with sophomore Alex Kinsey.
³It's their first time on varsity and I think it's just a matter of making the jump from junior varsity to varsity. The scrimmages prepared us a little bit but we obviously have a lot of work to do."
While the team's execution may need some work, Kosa has no qualms about the character his team displayed considering everything it had went through last week.
"I think that they did the best that they could out there," said Kosa, whose club fell 71-50 at Monroe last Monday and will play in the Cherokee Tournament at Rancocas on December 27-28.
"They hustled, they asked everything of themselves. We were mentally fatigued and it showed. We didn't make good decisions at times. When were fresh, we were OK."
After the game, the Little Tigers' thoughts turned to Wilson, who has been moved from a hospital in Philadelphia to one in Trenton and is still partially paralyzed from his wound.
"I know some of the guys are going to go down and see him tomorrow," said Kosa. "I spoke to Rich today and his spirits were up. I think we are going to try to make the best we can out of it."
And in the process, the Little Tigers are learning some hard lessons that should serve them well on and off the court.
