Yesterday afternoon, the Bears dispatched Martin Luther, 74-48, to improve to 11-3 in the PSAA with two games left to play. The Bears’ win, coupled with Long Island Lutheran’s loss to Knox yesterday, leaves the Bears tied with LuHi for #2 in the PSAA with only a few days left in the regular season.

The Bears, who topped Luther 99-44 on January 22, wasted little time in building a first-quarter lead. They built a 9-5 lead behind layups from Randolph Logan and Michael Xiang and a dunk from Fraysser Torres before unleashing a 12-0 run that left them ahead 21-5. During the surge, The Brook used their aggressive, trapping defense to force Luther into multiple turnovers that led to easy fastbreak buckets and a 24-11 lead after one.

Lutheran fought back in the second quarter, opening the frame on a 6-2 run to close to within 17-26 before outscoring the Bears 12-4 over the rest of the period to trail 29-30 at the break.

The Bears opened the third quarter with renewed defensive energy that spurred an 11-0 run, allowing them to take back control of the game. A blur of steals and fastbreak layups built back a double-digit lead that swelled to 54-33 by the end of the period as the Bears outscored the Cougars 24-4 over the eight-minute span. Torres opened the fourth quarter with his third dunk, and the Bears never looked back as they cruised to the victory.

Dylan Kopp, Long Island’s top private school scorer and #4 overall at 23.3 ppg, led all scorers with 22. Logan (12), Torres (11), Orlando Morris (10), Nate Small (6), Paul Coty (6), Alvin Zhou (3), Andreas Simoni (2), and Xiang (2) completed a balanced scoring attack.

The Bears wrap up the regular season with a pair of key match-ups that will determine the final PSAA playoff seeding. On Wednesday, they travel to Portledge before hosting LuHi on Friday night for a Senior Night tilt that could be a battle for the #2 seed in the PSAA tournament.

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