Hampton Bays Boys Basketball Has Its Best Game Yet This Season In Victory Over Shoreham-Wading River

Kazmin Pensa-Johnson’s highlight reel play to close out the first quarter of the Hampton Bays boys basketball team’s home game against Shoreham-Wading River last Thursday, January 20, was a sign of things to come.

With seconds ticking off the clock at the end of the first frame, Shoreham raced the ball down the court to try to get a last-second three-pointer off. But Pensa-Johnson had a booming block, then he corralled the bouncing ball at half court and sent a last-ditch shot of his own that hit nothing but net.

The play wowed the home crowd and his teammates, but more importantly, it gave the Baymen an 18-7 lead, one they would hold on to the rest of the night in a 58-46 victory over the Wildcats.

“The block felt great, and then as I was running down, I didn’t know if I had enough time, so I just threw it up there,” Pensa-Johnson, who finished with 15 points and 13 rebounds, described the play after the game. “I knew it was going in. I had a good feeling about that one.

“I think it just gave us another kick-start to the game,” he added. “It gave us an early jump.”

Hampton Bays head coach Noah Brown said that it was his team’s best game of the season thus far. “We showed some composure,” he said. “Our statistician, I asked him before the game, I want to just know about turnovers. At halftime, I looked and we had four turnovers and we had a big lead.”

Hampton Bays (2-5 League VI, 3-10 overall) led, 25-13, at the half, but Shoreham went on a strong run midway through the third in which it outscored the Baymen, 10-2, to make it a 35-32 game. But the Baymen seemed to stop the bleeding toward the end of the third and started to get back into it early in the fourth, aided by the fact that the Wildcats were already in foul trouble and had one of their starters foul out.

“They chipped away because we started turning the ball over, but some of our senior leaders, Chris Sanchez and James Salas, really chilled out, took care of the ball, and we were able to take it from there,” Brown said.

Both teams utilized the full-court press the entire game, which can be taxing for some teams. But Brown said that’s the way he likes his teams to play and noted that Shoreham playing in a press was to his team’s advantage.

“If you’re a basketball guy, you understand that their press is to our benefit. You get quick, easy points,” he said. “Both teams were really only scoring on transitions. We know we’ve been turning the ball over a ton on other teams’ full-court press, so we had a game plan of working the ball in and out and getting quick, easy layups, and it worked perfectly.”

Hampton Bays sophomore Isaiah Lattanzio, who scored 12 points and most likely had double digits in rebounds as well, admitted playing in a press the entire game is difficult but didn’t shy away from it.

“After a while it gets pretty tiring. You just have to push for four quarters, and then you go home and rest,” he said.

Hampton Bays was able to turn around a tough 51-49 loss at Shoreham from earlier this season on December 9. Brown said limiting the turnovers was part of the difference, but so was a little bit of a roster change. He moved Penza-Johnson from the four to the three and inserted sophomore Patrick Donahue into the four.

Donahue wound up scoring a game-high 19 points, seven of which came from the free-throw line, where he was 4 for 6 down the stretch in the final quarter. He also had five rebounds.

“Patrick Donahue is an outstanding athlete. I love him as an athlete — he is growing into a basketball player,” Brown said. “So I really tried to put the most athletic team on the court tonight, and that really was a difference. Pat was all over the place.”

Whether or not that lineup will stick going forward remains to be seen. Brown admitted that he had a completely different lineup about 40 minutes before tipoff before going with what he did. It’s a game-by-game situation, he said.