Kennedy Boys Finish Unbeaten In League Play

SOMERS—While the Kennedy Catholic boys basketball team has its eyes set on a bigger prize, the Gaels should certainly take some pride in what they accomplished this week. The Gaels opened their week with Tuesdays win over Pawling, and then followed that up with a pair of wins over Lincoln Hall to close out the year with a 10-0 record in league play.

“I told the boys it was something to be proud of, it was 10 games and the closest game they had was 10 points,” coach Frank Kelly said. “It’s a tribute to how they work, how they work in the offseason with the weight lifting. It’s an accomplishment, it’s not really our goal, but it’s an accomplishment. They were happy but they don’t talk about it much, they’ve got their eyes set on something else.”

Kennedy closed out their regular season with two straight wins over Lincoln Hall to finish the season 16-2 overall. Due to an issue with Lincoln Hall’s gym, both games were played at Kennedy.

The Gaels won Thursday’s game 71-53, and then won 80-44 on Saturday. In the first game, the Gaels found themselves down two entering the second quarter, but quickly turned the game around by outscoring Lincoln Hall 43-24 in the next two quarters.

“There haven’t been many games where we losing after the first quarter, maybe this was only the second or third time,” Kelly said. “I guess we didn’t come out as tough as we should have…the intensity was not there. It picked up a little bit in the second quarter, it picked up a lot on the second half.”

Dan Healy led the Gaels with 30 points, Ryan Hickey had 17 and Frank Kelly scored 10.

“This was the quietest 30 points I’ve ever had a kid score,” Kelly said. “I got on him for most of the game, and when I looked at the scorebook at the end of the game I thought it was somewhere near 20.”

In their second game against Lincoln Hall, the Gaels controlled from the outset, jumping out to a 14-0 lead and never let up.

“This was one of our better games all year, from start to finish,” Kelly said. “Even when our reserves came in there was no let down what so ever. Lincoln Hall to be fair, was a little tired, they played five or six games in a row. But our effort and our sharing of the ball was the best I’ve seen all year. We didn’t take a shot that was a wrong shot all day. It was a total, total, team effort.”

Hickey led the Gaels with 21 points, Healy had 14 and Kelly had 13 in a game that 11 different Gaels scored.

“I think for our last four or five games he’s [Hickey] probably been our best player all around,” Kelly said. “He’s given tremendous effort, he’s like a man on a mission, both on the glass and scoring. He’s doing real well with Danny and him partnering up, he’s playing real well.”

Against Pawling, the Gaels started strong, building a 13 point first quarter lead before letting up a little in the second. But when the second half began the Gaels quickly put the game out of reach.

“We started with our starters, and they did well,” Kelly said. “The reserves came in, in the second quarter and did so-so. We took over the game over in the third quarter…We went back to the starters, we weren’t happy at halftime with the effort, and they came out in the second half with a much better effort.”

Healy once again led the Gaels with 18 points, with Hickey right behind him with 16. Kyle Tabulsy finished with nine, in another game that 11 different Gaels scored.

“We had a big size advantage against that team, so we were able to pound it inside and get some easy baskets,” Kelly said.

The Gaels will begin the sectional playoffs with a home game on Friday night. The start time and opponent were set to be realased Wednesday but were too late to be included. Kelly expects to start at either 6:15 or 7:00 and for the Gaels to be a top two seed.