Rocks rolling after slow start

After dropping its first five games of the 2013-14 campaign, East Rockaway’s boys’ basketball team is clicking on all cylinders.

A dominant 60-28 home victory against Carle Place last Friday night in which the Rocks jumped out to a 25-2 lead was their fifth win in six games as well as their third in a row.

The Rocks, who improved to 3-2 in Conference B-C, began their current winning streak with a dramatic 62-61 overtime triumph at Oyster Bay on Jan. 10 in which Damian Amiruddin sank two clutch free throws with 3.7 seconds remaining. They followed that up four days later with a 66-59 win against defending Class B champion Wheatley.

Even after a 0-5 start, East Rockaway head coach Joe Lores said he never lost confidence in his team.

“Even when we started out the season 0-5 we were getting better every week,” said Lores who last season captured his 200th career win and was named the Basketball Coaches Association (BCANY) of New York Classification ‘B” Section Coach of the Year. “I kept telling them that we might not have a win yet but we’re getting better,” he added.

East Rockaway has been led offensively during the winning streak by 6-5 senior center Kevin Blessington and outside shooting from sophomore Daniel Fusco, who both earned BCANY accolades last season. Fusco had 25 points in the win over Wheatley after netting 23 in the OT win at Oyster Bay. Also adding some scoring punch have been Dom DeRosa and Dom DeGiulio, who scored 10 and six points, respectively, against Carle Place. 

“We like to run things through Kevin and get it inside because he is our big guy and then we can go out and look for some [three pointers],” Lores said of Blessington, who had 21 points against Carle Place. “Kevin is the guy we try and establish.”

Lores said gaining an overtime win in a tough environment like Oyster Bay will pay huge dividends for the Rocks as they gear up for important late-season games and make a playoff push.

“That was a huge confidence booster because that is an extremely tough place to play,” he said. “We generally come home on the bus upset after playing there, but not this time.”

After a Jan. 21 home game against Friends Academy, after presstime, East Rockaway travels to neighborhood rival Malverne this Friday night for a 6:30 p.m. tipoff. Malverne defeated East Rockaway in the teams’ first meeting this season on Jan. 7, 61-47.

The Rocks have improved from their tough December start and Lores is hoping the progress continues leading into a possible playoff run next month. East Rockaway last captured a county title in 2006.

“The goals like every year are to improve every game and get ourselves in the playoffs since anything can happen once that happens,” Lores said. “We want to play our best basketball in February.”