Summit Boys Basketball Falls to Linden 61-29

With about five minutes left in Summit's battle with Linden on Tuesday night at Summit High School, a sequence occurred that pretty much told the tale of the game.

Dwaine Dabney was heavily pressured by two Tigers on the wing and tried to bounce a pass into the lane. The ball was deflected twice before Terry McKenna scrambled on the floor and came up with it, managing, while on his back, to get the ball to get the ball to Clayton Johnson.

While the end result of that play–a Cris Cafiero three-pointer–was hardly typical of the evening for Summit, everything leading up to it was. Linden pressured Summit all night, thoroughly disrupting the Hilltopper offense on its way to a 61-29 victory.

Summit, which fell to 3-5, committed 26 turnovers and got outrebounded 35-20 by Linden, which improved to 9-2. Those miscues and that rebounding deficit resulted in a 28-shot advantage for the Tigers, who made nearly as many field goals as Summit was able to launch.

Linden played man-to-man the whole way, and challenged all passes and nearly every dribble. The Tigers trapped on the wings and pressed even off missed shots.

"They pressure the whole game," said Summit guard Dwaine Dabney. "They didn't let up once. They have a lot of athletes out there."

Summit was in the game at halftime when it trailed 27-17, but the wheels came off in the third quarter, when Linden forced nine turnovers and allowed the Hilltoppers to take only five shots, of which they made just one.

The Tigers, meanwhile, were on the run, converting those turnovers into 9 of 18 shooting to put the game away at 47-19 heading into the final period. The Linden run that began 25 seconds into the second half reached 24-2 before Cafiero finally ended it with that three-pointer. It was one of the few looks Cafiero got in the game, though he did add another three-pointer with 3:00 left in the contest.

Shawn Hillas gave Summit its only lead of the night when he hit a shot from the right corner with 6:20 left in the first quarter to put the Hilltoppers up 2-0. Summit big man Matt Wholey swatted away four Linden shots in the first four minutes of the game, but six Summit turnovers over that span kept the Hilltoppers from taking advantage.

Summit finally broke the press, with Hillas delivering a pass to David Newton for one of the few easy baskets of the night, and Johnson knocked down a 14-footer and Summit trailed only 13-8 after one quarter

But a steal and lay-up and a rebound basket opened the Linden lead to 10. Despite the aggressive defense, the Tigers weren't whistled for a foul in the game until 3:53 remained in the first half.

Twice Summit whittled the lead to seven–on a Johnson three with 3:41 left in the half, and again on his 12-footer in the lane with 2:00 remaining. But Linden was beginning to have its way inside and got a lay-up to take a 10-point lead into the locker room.

That was as close as Summit would be the rest of the night.

"Coach said what you have to do (against the pressure defense) is keep moving and set screens, keep moving and don't stop," Dabney said.

Wholey led the way with 10 points, five rebounds and five blocks, while Johnson had seven points and five assists. Cafiero added six points.

Summit made 12 of 32 shots, and only 3 of 11 from beyond the arc. They got to the line just five times, converting two.

Linden was led by Elijah Hodge's 15 points, many of those off steals and breakaways, and 13 by Quadeer Lewis. The Tigers made 26 of 60 shots, including 4 of 15 from deep.

With few shot creators who could create space off the dribble, Summit simply could never run much of an offense on Tuesday.

"We have only a few athletes on our team," said Dabney, who is one of those athletes, though his own efforts to find space against Linden were mostly  unsuccessful. "We have a lot of good basketball players but not that many athletes who are able to move around and create space."

Dabney said while both head coach Eugene Maxwell and the players were upset with the performance, the season is not lost.

"It's disappointing, but at the end of the day, life goes on," Dabney said. "You've got to get focused for the next game.

"You can see during the game our attitudes are changing,"  he said. "We're all just being a lot more proactive, so I see us starting to take it in a different direction."

Maxwell was unavailable for comment afterward.