East Pulls Away From West in Boys Basketball Battle

East boys basketball defeated West 64-53 Friday night in front of a packed house at Smithtown East Gym. East went into halftime with a 30-24 lead, but pulled away later in the second half. East junior John Feiler had a strong game, scoring a game high 23 points on 11-of-18 shooting and grabbed 14 rebounds.

"I was looking inside, I was trying not to be selfish and it just came to me," Feilder said. "We came out in the second half looking to just take the game, and we did. We came out with a little more intensity and pulled away."

East built a double digit lead midway through the third quarter and the margin fluctuated between 10 and 16 points the rest of the way. The dagger was driven in by Mike Modugno, who's back-to-back three-pointers early in the fourth quarter pushed the East lead out to 54-38.

West was led offensively by Mike Baiardi, who scored a team high 17 points.

Both coaches spoke of what the rivalry meant to them after the game.

"Coach Gambeski and I have been friends and coached together for years so we always have a little bit on the line," West coach Mike Massa said.  "I think it's good for the town, it's good healthy competition."

Gambeski echoed those sentiments.

"It's a fun rivalry, it's a friendly rivalry," he said. "Some rivalry's in high school and in college get ugly, but this is anything but. It is spirited, it goes way back to our roots. The Smithtown kids played together and grew up together, the two coaches coached together, there's a lot of connections and there's a lot on the line. There's a lot of emotion and it's fun."

The opening league game was also a part of the Dellecave Tournament, named after former Suffolk County educator and official Butch Dellecave. 

"Smithtown was always the mecca of summer basketball and he was the guy who ran it," Gambeski said. "For a person who coaches in Smithtown and grew up in Smithtown, he's important to the history of basketball here in Suffolk county and we want to honor that."

The game itself was never close in the second half, and Massa attributed that to his teams poor shooting and the size of the East front line.

"If we're going to shoot the way we did we can not be missing with guys that big," Massa said. Their length really hurts us in terms of what we can do on the boards. We're just a little bit undersized and a little young. I think we did a nice job to compete and I'm happy with the effort we put forth and I think we're going to get better as the year goes on."

Both teams have a quick turnaround, with East meeting Longwood in the Dellecave championship game. The extra repetitions should give both teams a chance to clean up their games. Gambeski described this contest as a "typical December game. It was ugly and there were a lot of turnovers."

He took no extra joy in defeating West because of the relationship the two coaches have, and added that his team stuck to its game plan and was just physically too big for West to handle.

"I think ultimately our height advantage was the difference," he said. "Our strength is inside and it showed tonight."