Indians fall hard in first home game

Michael Mundy takes a shot in a sea of East Rockaway players, while Connor Needham stands ready for a pass to the perimeter.

The Indians’ strong first quarter performance gave way to a loss Saturday on the Indians home court, as Shelter Island’s offense was outpaced by East Rockaway’s relentless shooting for a final score of 26-61. 


The Shelter Island squad started out with a bang, scoring some quick points and gaining the lead in the first few minutes of the game. Though the Indians carried the lead for the majority of the first quarter, East Rockaway held on, and by the end of the first quarter the Rocks had taken a 4-point lead. 


That’s when the game’s momentum really swung in East Rockaway’s favor. Varsity Coach Mike Mundy said, “As soon as things change, it’s a mental thing — we start to fall apart, we lose composure too easily.” 


The team began to struggle to put points on the board with each possession, giving up turnover after turnover and subsequent easy layups to East Rockaway. Most of those turnovers were due to intercepted passes, perhaps a product of the Indians’ reluctance to take shots from the outside — Shelter Island spent a lot of time passing around the perimeter rather than making attempts.


They scored only 4 points in the second quarter while giving up 17 to the Rocks, and in the third quarter scored just 2 to East Rockaway’s 20.


Aside from the turnovers, which Mundy said “killed us,” the team’s shooting percentage continues to be a problem for the squad. “We know that, and that’s the story from last year: we can’t get the ball in the hoop.” It’s an issue he hopes will be solved by repetition, through more practice time. “We missed some gym time, which hurt us,” said Mundy in reference to last Tuesday’s school closing and the Science Fair, which occupied the gymnasium. Practice time at the gym is rare, he said, due to many teams vying for gym time at once.


As the game wore on, it became clear the Indians were out-matched: “They got kids shooting off of one foot from the 3-point line with a second left and it goes in,” recalls Mundy. East Rockaway is a larger school that normally plays in a more competitive league.


But that’s not to say the Indians gave up. Shelter Island played aggressive basketball to the end, including some hard drives to the net that proved the Rocks’ defense was far from rock-solid. A late-game jump shot from Tyler Pendergrass scored the Indians 2 points, drew a foul from the Rocks and a raucous cheer from the crowd. The Indians racked up 11 points in the last quarter, making it their highest-scoring quarter of the game. “We hustled hard, and we fought hard,” said Mundy.


Co-captain Michael Mundy led the team in scoring, putting up 10 of the Indians’ 26 points. He was followed closely by co-captain Dustin Mulcahy, a strong presence beneath the net who scored 7 points.


Despite their opponents’ high score, the Indians had a relatively strong defensive showing in the face of the upper-level team. For the most part, their zone defense was one of the better parts of their game, said Coach Mundy. “To hold them to 60 is not tragic … we knew we were facing a higher-caliber team.”


But the Indians’ defense still needs improvement. “The way we shoot, we gotta keep the teams under 50 [points].”


While playing against an upper-level team can be discouraging, it has its upsides: “It should make our [league] opener against Pierson a little easier,” Coach Mundy said.


He pointed out one of the problems unique to teams at small schools like Shelter Island. “We want well-rounded kids, and unfortunately in a small school, kids don’t dedicate themselves to one thing, if you wanna have them play.” After all, there aren’t enough kids to have each play just one sport and still be able to field so many teams. He compared Shelter Island to Mattituck, the team that the Indians lost to the day before, 18-55. Those basketball players “played in the spring league, they played in the summer league, and they played in the fall league … that puts us at a disadvantage.”


In that game, too, the Indians led the first quarter with a strong start only to go downhill from there. Both games, said the coach, were “like an emotional roller coaster.” But, he added, “it’s gonna get better.”


“The team that came out,” he said, referring to the start of Saturday’s game, “that’s the way we’re capable of playing. We have the talent to put that together for four quarters.” They’ll try during their next game against Carle Place at Shelter Island on December 12 at 1:45 p.m.