Boys & Girls was not the only team to beat Thomas Jefferson on Saturday under the bright lights at Madison Square Garden. Jefferson also beat itself.
“Everyone wanted to make history today, we knew what was on the table,” Jefferson coach Lawrence (Bud) Pollard said. “You’re only as good as your last game, though, and the turnovers and missed free throws came back to bite us.”
Despite being a championship caliber team, Jefferson struggled mightily in the PSAL Class AA city championship game. The Orange Wave committed a self-destructive 21 turnovers and shot a meager 54 percent from the free throw line, as Boys & Girls came away with a 71-67 victory and their third straight city title.
Normally an evenly matched contest between the two Brooklyn powerhouses, with Jefferson even defeating Boys & Girls in the borough title game, Jefferson found itself down early and was unable to completely erase the deficit.
“The game was going fast, we just couldn’t settle down and get into a rhythm,” said Jefferson guard Jaquan (Son Son) Lynch, who finished with a team high 18 points. “But next year, we’ll be back. We’ll be here again.”
“I just wish we could have played a best-of-five series against them. I would trade the Brooklyn championship for this one,” Pollard added. “But my hat goes off to them, they were just better than us today.”
Jefferson star senior and offensive spark plug Thaddeus Hall finished with a solid 17-point, five-rebound performance, but struggled from beyond the arc as well as leading the team with four turnovers. After hitting a 3-pointer with 6:40 left in the first quarter, he missed the rest of his five shots from 3-point range and was unable to fill the role of catalyst for the Jefferson offense late in the game like he has throughout the season.
“Thad was forcing some shots, but during the season, he usually made most of the shots he missed today,” Pollard said. “It’s the title game, so we rode him until the wheels fell off.”
It wasn’t just the Jefferson (25-7) offensive woes that did in its championship hopes, as its inability to cover Boys & Girls (24-6) transfer guard Rashad Andrews hurt them too. Andrews lit up the scoreboard early, even outscoring the entire Jefferson team, 14-13, at the 1:33 mark in the first quarter. He buried 3-point shot after 3-point shot, ending with a perfect 5-for-5 ratio from beyond the arc as he finished with a game-high 26 points before fouling out with 3:32 left in the fourth quarter, but not before Jefferson’s title hopes had been dashed.
“Andrews was lights out and he was the difference in the game for sure, we knew someone would have that type of game,” Pollard said. “Whoever has the best backup dancers usually steals the show, and that’s what happened today.”