Howse About It! OU Survives Fight To Advance

Reading, MA – To steal a term that I first heard on the Ultimate Fighter reality TV show: “whoever imposes their will, wins the fight”. Last night was a testament to that mentality. For 39 minutes, in the cage known as the Burbank YMCA court, Origins Unknown and Howse Corp exchanged blows until only one team was left standing with their arms raised in victory. When the buzzer sounded, Origins Unknown had survived a hard-fought and gutsy performance from the under-manned Howse Corp to hang on for a 78-72 victory.

Howse Corp, without their Cap’n Rusty and top slasher Dan, took the court with no subs, which played into OU’s run-and-run-and-run game plan. OU used an adjusted defensive strategy, which (looking back) did and didn’t work out as well as intended. OU started with defensive stopper Stretch Hogan d’ing up the versatile Richie Curran. R. Curran took Hogan outside early and hit back to back threes (one was a lucky 24 foot bank shot) to start the game. Eventually, Hogan stifled Curran’s offense and Howse was forced to look elsewhere for points. Meanwhile, OU spread their offense around as Dan Fisher, Cap’n Mike, Shu Patel and James “Stretch” Hogan IV balanced the attack.

Three quick threes from Nolan and some pull-up jump shots from Fisher helped OU jump out to an 8-point advantage towards the end of the half. Howse was relying on a bevy of back-cuts by Dennis Curran and others to keep the game close. With seconds remaining, Al Hamilton hit an over-the-head lay up off his own miss and Howse was able to cut that lead to 4 at the break.

The second half was when the game turned into an all-out turf war, with both teams expanding maximum energy on both ends of the court (and everyplace in between). Early in the half, Cap’n Mike and Al Hamilton got into a verbal battle, with both players losing their cool and exchanging words. Hamilton responded with his play(for once) by hitting a key three from the side, and giving Howse the lead. Not to be outdone, Nolan took the ball quickly back up court, and when the defense collapsed, he threw a dart to an open Greg Robinson under the hoop for the lay-up (attempt). Hamilton 1 Nolan 0.

Both teams continued to scrap in the second half, as different players stepped up for both teams. With buckets hard to come by, Stretch Hogan put the OU bunch on his sholders, with huge back-to-back twisting baskets in traffic. Hamilton again responded for Howse, by taking his game down low and posting up on several occasions. The “shot heard round the court” last night, was delivered by Shu Patel at the 2-minute mark, when he drained a three from the sideline, giving OU the three point lead. After getting a defensive stop, OU brought the ball up into aggressive defensive pressure but were able to keep their poise, as Howse was forced to foul. Nolan, Patel and Fisher combined to go 8-10 from the line in the final minutes, to seal the win.

The victory vaults OU into the finals for the 5th straight session. There, they will match-up against Evans, after they beat the always tough Crusty Muskets 76-72 in the night’s other semi-final. Evans and OU agreed to play the finals, not only for the YMCA League Champions T-Shirts, but also beers at Chili’s following the game. This lit a fire under the always-thirsty OU bunch.