Davis, Feasters Lead Bees To Victory for Johnson's Homecoming

It seemed like a lid was on the basket for the Bridgehampton boys basketball team through the first half of the first quarter of its home opener on Thursday, December 14, as the Killer Bees missed their first dozen or so shots. Visiting Port Jefferson was out to a 7-0 lead and it looked like, at least early on, that just maybe Carl Johnson’s long-awaited return to Bridgehampton was going to be spoiled.

The Bees would not let that happen, though.

After Jai Feaster made a basket coming off an inbound pass from senior Evan Buccigross, Bridgehampton went on a torrid 11-2 run to finish out the quarter tied, 11-11, with the Royals. Feaster kept pouring it on in the second, and when fellow sophomore Alex Davis started to get comfortable, scoring 18 of his game-high 31 points in the third quarter, the Bees started to take the game over, leading to a 68-40 victory over Port Jeff, and what ended up being what Johnson himself said was a pretty perfect homecoming.

“It feels pretty good,” to be back, Johnson said, after the game. “I remember retiring and thinking, ‘I’m not going to have a chance to coach in the new gym?’” he added, with a laugh. “But tonight was pretty much perfect, and I couldn’t have asked for a better ending when I first retired. Someone asked me if I was nervous and I said I’m always nervous, especially with it being our first home game. But being in this gym for the first time, as a varsity coach, it felt great.”

Those nerves were probably shared by his players, Johnson guessed, which explained the slow start.

“We’ve been charting down how many missed layups, missed free throws we’ve had, and that’s just a lack of concentration,” Johnson said. “Maybe they did have the jitters, it’s our first home game, our first three games were on the road. But they came through. They got into a groove and our defense spurred it on. Regardless of what anyone says, our defense is what’s going to carry us for the rest of the year.”

Feaster, who paced the team offensively in the first half, scoring 16 of his overall 24 points through the first two quarters, admitted after the game the slow start was definitely nerves.

“Obviously, it’s nerves. It’s the first home game of the season with a Class B school coming into your home, and at first it’s overwhelming,” he explained. “Once you get a feel of the game, that’s when everything comes through and we perform together.

“There’s just a lot of pressure,” Davis added. “But we just know when to take over,” referring to himself and Feaster. “We have this one-two punch.”

While Davis took over offensively in the third quarter, it was senior captain Mikhail Feaster who took over defensively. Johnson looked up and saw that Port Jeff’s Tyler Cobb was in double digits in scoring, he knew something had to change defensively, so he put Mikhail on him and told him to “hound him,” and that’s exactly what he did.

“He’s a senior and he doesn’t mind doing all the dirty work, so we put him on Cobb and he did an excellent job on him,” Johnson said.

As far as his one-two punch in Davis and Jai Feaster, Johnson admitted that in order for his team to be successful on most nights, they’re going to need both of them to do what they did.

“Neither one of them can afford to have a night off. They can’t have a bad night,” he said. “Hopefully, we can keep them going, and Evan and Tyler [Fitzgerald] can get more comfortable in the offense in the second half. I’m pushing Alex and Jai to instill confidence in those guys.”

To that end, with about three minutes remaining in the game, Johnson unloaded his bench, allowing the reserves to get some key minutes. Freshman Christian Pinckney almost immediately took a composed drive to the basket and scored on a layup while being fouled. He was pumped up, as were the starters on the bench. Then, when the Bees were on the other end on defense, the starters on the bench were cheering on the reserves saying, “Defense! Defense! Defense!”

“Your team is only as strong as your weakest link,” Jai Feaster said. “They need the support just as much as they give it to us. They give it to us and we’re going to give it back 100 percent.”

As for Johnson’s return to the team as varsity head coach, the players are excited.

“When we were younger and little kids we used to watch him win championships,” Davis said. “We always wanted to be here in this situation, and now we have a chance to.

“What he says goes, basically,” Feaster added, with a smile. “We don’t argue with what he says.”

After defeating Port Jeff last week, the Killer Bees responded with a big 63-61 nonleague victory at Riverhead on Saturday. Facing a much larger team, not just in enrollment but physically as well, David and Jai Feaster continued what they started against Port Jeff. Jai scored a game-high 29 points, which included six three-pointers, while Davis scored 27, 11 of which came from the free throw line.

On Monday night, Bridgehampton faced its stiffest competition yet when it hosted Smithtown Christian for their League VIII opener. Results occurred too late to appear in this week’ issue, but it was the first of three league games between the two teams this season. The Bees were also scheduled to host Southold on Thursday, December 21, at 6 p.m. before hosting Greenport on January 6 at noon.