The Johnston boys’ basketball team notched its eleventh consecutive victory with a solid, 74-53 decision over the Paul Cuffee Navigators on Tuesday night at Johnston High School, boosting its Division III record to 12-1 with just four games remaining in the regular season.
The Panthers were coming off big wins over Burrillville last week and a non-league win over Woodstock Academy in the CCRI High School Shootout on Saturday.
It was the Panthers’ 3-point shooting and defense that were the difference in Tuesday’s game with the Navigators.
Johnston tallied eleven 3-balls on the night with Ryan Yankee leading the way with five, followed by Jake Coro with four and Nassir Vasquez with two.
Yankee led all scorers with 25 points, but it was his defensive play with five first-half steals that helped Johnston get some easy fast-break points in the opening minutes.
“This was Ryan Yankee’s best all-around game of the year,” said Johnston head coach Steve DeMeo. “His steals were big at the time, it was only a 5- or 7-point game. We came to play tonight, even though we did not have a good practice yesterday.”
Yankee, who is only a junior, cracked the 900-point barrier in the game and needs only 95 more points to reach 1,000 points in his high school career. He is averaging close to 19 points per game and it is possible he can achieve the milestone some time towards the end of the year or into the playoffs.
The Panthers got some good minutes from Tyler Nasisi, who came up with a steal and lay-in to get Johnston on the board. Nasisi’s steal and nice pass to Coro helped the Panthers build an early, 22-12 lead, but it was Yankee who consistently made things happen with multiple steals, which ignited numerous fast breaks.
Coro’s four 3-pointers in the first half also helped stake the Panthers to a 44-29 halftime lead. Coro would net 23 points in the game.
“They [the Navigators] tried to make some adjustments by trying to take Yankee and Coro out of the game and that left Vasquez open and he hit some big 3s,” DeMeo said. “Those three guys together – Yankee, Coro and Vasquez are hard to stop when they are on their game.”
Vasquez and Yankee hit some deep 3s as the Panthers extended their lead to as much as 20 points in the second half, 61-41.
Vasquez had 15 points and came up with some nice steals of his own that showed his quickness.
The Navigators, who drop to 5-8 in league play, were led by Aaron Gray’s 19 points and Israel Woods’ 16 points.
“We are motivated to make the state open tournament and we hope to run the table the rest of the season – that is our goal,” DeMeo stated.
DeMeo went on to say that every player on his team knows their role and will do whatever is asked of them.
“We have good pieces that fit in,” he said. “Tyler Nasisi knows his job, he is our defensive guy. Bobby Russo crashes the boards and Ed Gallucci, playing with a brace on his knee after tearing his ACL earlier in the season, and Ryan Peterson did a really good job boxing out tonight. They all know their roles, that is why we are so successful. They know what we expect of them and we do not have any ego problems on this team, which is nice.”
The Panthers can clinch the regular season Division III-Central title with a win over Saint Patrick Academy tonight. Johnston defeated St. Patrick a few weeks ago, 72-27. There will be no junior varsity game tonight, so the varsity game will start at 6 p.m. instead of 7.
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