Prep Basketball : Angelus League : Servite Uses Zone to Take Any Punch Out of Bishop Amat’s Offense

When a guy such as Larry Walker, who has been using man-to-man defense at Servite High School for 18 seasons, drops his team into a zone, there must be something up, or down.

Make that way down, as in defending Angelus League champion Bishop Amat. This is a boys’ basketball team that consistently scored in the 90s last season, but whose offense has fallen on hard times. Things got harder against Servite, which beat Bishop Amat, 61-40, Friday in an Angelus League game in front of 500 at Servite.

Walker, back from a year’s sabbatical, recognized Bishop Amat’s anemic offense while watching films.

“They don’t shoot the ball very well from the outside,” Walker said.

Bishop Amat (11-6, 0-2), which lost four starters from last season’s team, made only one shot farther than 8 feet. Walker put his team into the zone in the second half.

“We wanted to jam things up as best we could in the second half and force them to shoot over us,” Walker said. “I thought we did a pretty good job of it. This was a pretty big win for us.”

Servite (11-6, 2-1), which led, 14-13, after the first quarter, had a 30-23 lead at half, that coming on Andy Kennedy’s 3-point bank shot with 2 seconds left.

“It was a lucky shot,” Walker said.

No such luck for Bishop Amat.

After Bishop Amat’s Jason Green scored the second half’s first basket to close it to 30-25, Servite outscored Bishop Amat, 14-2, the rest of the quarter. Bishop Amat would only score 17 points in the second half, and had only four players score, led by center Pablo Patino’s 19 and Green’s 12.

“You only score 17 points in a half and you’re not going to win an eighth-grade game,” said Alex Acosta, Bishop Amat coach.

Ten players scored for Servite, led by Kennedy’s 15 and Steve Marusich’s 12. But it was defense that seemed to win this game--whether it was Servite players clogging the middle and forcing Bishop Amat to shoot from outside, or Servite players stripping the ball away from their opponents.

“They (Servite) played good defense,” Acosta said. “But I don’t think there’s a defense in the world that’s going to cause 16 turnovers in one half. If there was, I’d play it. The way things look after this game, we may go 0-for the league.”