RZJHS TIGERS Roar, Knock off AJA Jaguars 57-43

Day two of the Cooper Invitational kicked off on Court 1 with a Tier II matchup featuring the #2 Rochelle Zell Jewish High School Tigers against the #7 seed, the Atlanta Jewish Academy Jaguars. The game got off to a fiery start, with both teams having a very close game. However, the Tigers began to pull ahead a bit with some great passing and rebounding, showing why they are the #2 seed in Tier II. Jonah Hammel on the Tigers stood out in particular with some great rebounding and doing some great work under the paint. As the quarter ended, the crucial shots for the Jaguars were not falling, and they began to find themselves in some trouble. The first quarter ended with the Tigers continuing to extend their lead, playing a much more aggressive defense and really sticking on the Jaguars by not letting them move the ball around like they wanted to. The Tigers led 15-9 when the first quarter ended.

Both teams had some sloppy passes which turned into bad turnovers in the first couple of minutes to start the second quarter, but the Tigers remained strong and started pulling themselves together halfway through with an amazing steal by Nathan Kushnir, and went ahead to 24-9. The Jaguars continued to fall behind as their shots were just not going in the basket, and Jake Silvers continued to find layups and easy points, having already 14 points before the first half closed. At halftime, the Tigers were up 36-15.

The third quarter began with both teams coming out swinging, with both sides fouling and with Jake Silvers getting awfully close to fouling out. However, he didn’t seem to care, scoring an insane and 1 and picking up another 7 points. The quarter was just a progressive stomp, with the Tigers building up a 29 point lead, ending the third quarter up 55-26.

At the beginning of the fourth, the Jaguars started showing up with a nice 3 from Josh Asherian, and some nice defense and rebounding allowed them to hold onto the ball. As AJA’s hopes rose, so did their gameplay, with some nice aggressive defense, they were able to cut the deficit down to 17 points halfway through the quarter. The Tigers were also playing a bit sloppy, so the  Jaguars had a faint hope of a chance to catch up, especially with Doni Chasen having scored an astounding 20 points. However, with such a large lead already, it would be almost impossible for them to come back with anything short of a miracle, and while the AJA fans were hoping for a comeback, at the end of the day the lead proved to be too large to catch up to, and the Tigers closed it out, winning by a final score of 57-43. The Tigers move on to the Tier II semi-finals, while the Jaguars move into the consolation bracket. The Tigers were led by Jake Silvers with 21 points and the Jaguars were led by Doni Chasen with 20 points.

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