AJA JAGS Mangle hometown Cooper Macs 66-25 for first tournament win

In the first consolation game of the night, the Hometown Cooper Macs faced the AJA Jaguars. In the first two games, we’ve seen the Macs compete; we just haven’t seen results. They were hoping to come into this game with a different mentality and hoping to get their offense rolling. The Jaguars had other plans. They opened the game with an 11-4 scoring run with Eliott Sokol proving his value. Throughout the quarter, the Macs struggled to bring in defensive rebounds. On one Jaguars’ possession, AJA had 5 consecutive opportunities to score due to the Macs’ failure to box out. The Macs ended the quarter on a bright note as, Shahar Cahana hit a layup with seconds left on the clock. However, Macs were trailing by 15 points to end the first.

The Macs picked it up in the second quarter. With senior Joel Weinstein benched for the first half, the Macs were in desperate need of a source of offense. They turned to Jason Schubert for some answers, and he delivered. He hit a couple of layups and got the Macs rolling. Once again, however, turnovers haunted the Macs. A majority of the Jaguars’ fast-break points came off of Macs’ turnovers. Despite this, the Macs offense finally seemed to have found a rhythm. While only scoring 6 first quarter points, they went off for 13 in the second. The first quarter was all one-sided, but the Macs kept it fairly even in the second. They finished the half trailing 19-37.

To start the second half, the Macs checked in Joel Weinstein which gave the team and the fans a new sense of intensity that they lacked in the first half. It wasn’t enough to stop Eliott Sokol though. He caught fire as he knocked down a couple of threes and some big shots to extend the lead to 35. A bittersweet moment for the Macs occurred as Dovid Reuven Wogan scored his first points of his young career. The freshman hit what will surely be his first of many buckets in his high school Macs. Unfortunately, their struggles continued, and they finished the quarter with a 40 point deficit.

The Macs looked out of sorts in the fourth. Their intensity level dropped, and they seemed to have no hope of getting back in the game. The Jaguars’ coach gave his starters a well-deserved rest after playing hard the first three quarters. The Jaguars walked away with their first win of the tournament. The Macs are still searching for theirs as they play for 15th place on Sunday. The final score was 66-25. The high scorer for the Macs was Nadav Goldkin with 5. The high scorer for the Jaguars was Eliott Sokol with 20 points. It was a hard fought game, but ultimately, the Jaguars came out victorious.

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