KP Opens Basketball Season in Style

King Philip opened the 2011-12 basketball season to a sellout gymnasium in Wrentham against rival Franklin in hopes of once again making it to the Division 2 South Championship game. 

Warrior Captain Jake Layman knocked down the games first four points as King Philip grabbed the Hockomock League contest, 48-41.

The 6’8” senior would lead the Warriors with seven of his game-high 21 points in the first quarter as KP built a 14-5 lead. Both teams seemed to come out of the gates rusty and missing easy shots, but the home team nonetheless was making the most of their opportunities while their counterparts continued to struggle through the opening stanza.

“I’m proud of the way that we played; we played hard. A lot of guys were seeing their first varsity action tonight,” Franklin Coach Dean O’Connor said. “We didn’t play well offensively at times, but the effort was tremendous. I never thought that this game would be in the 40s. Hold King Philip to 48, you figure we’d win.”

King Philip saw their first quarter nine point lead all but vanish (20-17) as the two teams headed into the locker rooms at the half. Before they knew it, Franklin was in the lead (22-20) early in the third quarter.

The Panthers would jump on top a minute and 28 seconds into the second half when Matt Pilis knocked down a shot from the left side. Franklin would score 8 unanswered points before transfer student Tykei Hollman took a pass from Layman and laid it off the glass with turnaround shot. The visitors did not let Hollman’s acrobatic moves intimidate them as they pushed the ball into the KP zone while building a comfortable nine point lead of their own at 32-23.

“Franklin is a team that you cannot let back into the game, they really fight all the time,” Warrior Coach Sean McInnis said. “We had a couple mental breakdowns, but in the end did a good job.”

Trailing by their biggest margin of the night, Hollman and Layman went for 10 and 7 points, respectively, the rest of the way, getting the Warriors and their fans moving. Having already put down a thunderous jam to end the first half, Hollman knocked down a three-pointer, laid in a soft shot after two previous Warrior misses and added a move for the ages that got the house rockin’ as the Warriors cut the Franklin lead to four (37-33) after three quarters.

In the final quarter, the transfer student would add another five points, two of them on a rebound that he slammed home, knotting the game at 39. From there, Layman took over and the Warriors walked off the court with their first win of the season.

“Tykei takes some pressure off Jake and that’s one thing that we wanted to do,” the coach said. “Connor [Smith] had a great game and Mike Schmidt and Christian Fair played some great defense. We got some good looks at the basket and it’s all about defense and rebounding and that’s the way we’re going to win this year."

King Philip can’t rest as Hockomock League Champion Mansfield comes to town for game two next Tuesday at 6:30pm.