East Boy's Basketball Loses Tight Game to West Islip

West Islip boy's basketball defeated Smithtown East 47-45 Thursday night in a tightly contested match up. East trailed by six point points at half time but battled back, only to lose at the buzzer after a long Jon Feiler jumper did not find its mark.

The teams traded hoops late in the fourth quarter, with neither team going up by more than five points. Dan Thixton scored off a rebound to build the Bulls lead to 37-32 but back-to-back three-pointers by the Lions Chris Anderson quickly put his team up 38-37.

"Anderson played a tremendous game," East coach Lou Gambeski said after the game. "He torched us. He had 21 of the 47 points – he literally lit us up."

"I was just feeling it," Anderson said. "I just kept shooting in practice and working on my shot, just came out hot today."

East was down 45-41 when Feiler charged down the lane and dished a no-look pass to Dan Thixton down low, who converted the lay up with 49 seconds left.

Islip brought the ball up the court and was pressured for the entire shot clock by the East defense, but was able to find a hole with one second left on the shot clock to put the Lions back up by four.

Thixton put back a Feiler miss on the other end to bring it back to a two-point game, and the Lions missed the front end of a 1-and-1, giving East a chance to tie the game with nine seconds left.

A foul left the Bulls inbounding the ball from under the Lions hoop with three seconds left.  The ball came in to Feiler who fired a long contested jumper from the left baseline that came up short. Feiler finished the night with 17 points and 15 rebounds, and shot 6-of-16 from the floor.

"We'll take wins anyway we can get them, especially since we are so undersized, our center has a broken foot," Islip coach Tom Cross said. "You play against a kid who's 6-6 like Feiler and knew he was going to be difficult to guard. He still hurt us but we stepped up with a huge effort."

Along with Feiler, Thixton contributed 14 points and 12 rebounds. The only other East player to make more than one field goal was Mike Modugno, who chipped in with 10 and shot 2-of-7 from three-point range.

Coach Gambeski lamented about his team's defense on Anderson and said, "We did not close out on him. 90 percent of his points came from three-point range. We didn't find him, we didn't help on him, we didn't do a good job at all."

Besides the lack of perimeter defense Gambeski was also worrying about the lack of offense from his guards.

"We're having trouble finding our outside game, we're only one-dimensional and hopefully that'll come along," he said. "We have to find an answer in the backcourt in terms of points."

The Bulls will have a full week of practice ahead of them before they square off with Central Islip on New Year's Eve. The game is scheduled to tip-off at 10 a.m.