High School Basketball:
Defense Keys Cougars' Victory

Saturday, January 24, 1998

By Art Redd
SJSports Staff Writer

Cherry Hill East's defense was the key to their 32-16 victory over Pennsauken. The Cougars would start out with the traditional 2-3 defense and then switched to the 1-3-1 man press to stifle any Pennsauken inside game. Jeff Pela would score all the points for his team in the first half to take a 9-6 lead. Scott Plasky and Marcus Bullock would set up screens inside the paint to free up Pela.

The second half started with Coach Kevin Dugan of Pennsauken reminding his players that one man had scored all the points. His game plan was to stop Jeff Pela, and they would stop the Cougars. But that's when Marcus Bullock would pick up the slack by draining 3 pointers. If Pela was getting doubled teamed, he would find Bullock on the perimeter to hit the 3 pointer. Bullock would score all of his pointers on 3 pointers in the third quarter and send the Cougars on a 15-2 run to end the quarter. Pennsauken would try and find a way to come back from a 24-10 deficit.

It would seem as if Pennsauken would receive a break when Pela went down hard fighting for a rebound. He stayed down for several minutes. He was able to return to the bench under his own power. As a matter of fact, he didn't even sit on the bench at all. Pela was right back at the scorer's table ready to get back into the game. The Cougars would cruise the rest of the way with Pela finishing with 17 points.