East Boys Basketball Opens Season With Win Over Hampton Bays

Smithtown East started their season Thursday night by scoring 14 unanswered points in the opening minutes of their matchup against Hampton Bays en route to a wire-to-wire victory, 67-53.

"We had a very good start in the first quarter," said East coach Lou Gambeski. "We were hot and intense. That really set the stage for the rest of the game."

The Bulls' (1-0-0) intensity lasted throughout the game, using their size advantage to keep the lead in double digits the rest of the night.

6-foot-7 East junior John Feiler dominated inside, scoring 14 points to go along with eight rebounds.  Feiler was helped on the boards with 6-foot-4 junior Dan Thixton's nine rebounds. Thixton also contributed 20 points, a team high.

"We played good defense most of the game," Feiler said. "We got a lot of offensive boards and I think we worked a little harder than them."

Overall, Gambeski was happy with his team's performance.

"Everybody stepped up," he said. "We had a much better team intensity than we had in practice this week. It was a big concern of ours and we stepped up to meet the challenge. We attacked their zone well, we found the seams and we found the shots. I was really happy with the rebounding." 

But like any coach, he was also critical of a few things he saw from his team on the court.

"We have a lot of things to work on including defending the backcourt and dribble penetration," Gambeski said. "These are things we didn't do that well tonight."

East was able to extend its lead to 38-18 early in the third quarter after Thixton knocked down two mid-range jumpers, but Hampton Bays (0-1-0) was resilient, hitting two quick three pointers and to gain momentum, forcing East to take a time out.

Even though Hampton Bays started to come back and cut the East lead to 11 late in the third quarter, they were never able to trim the deficit to single digits.

Hampton Bays' Cameron Booth did his best to help his team get back in the contest, scoring a game high 25 points and knocking down four three-pointers.

"It's exactly the kind of start you don't want," said Hampton Bays coach Pete Meehan.  "If you spot a team that good, that plays that hard 16 points it's an uphill battle all the way. We fought to the end – we just lost to a good team."

The Bulls will have four days of practice to put everything together before hosting Sachem North on December 14. Tipoff is scheduled for 7:00pm.