NC Gaters Wide Open
July 27th, 2007 Posted in AAU Basketball
NC Gaters; AAU Nationals at Disney’s Wide World of Sports
Those morning blahs brought a few nervous moments for North Carolina Gaters basketball coach Stan Kowalewski. By early evening, though, there was calm in the gut of the man at the helm of one of the favorites to win the AAU Division I Junior National Championship. The Gaters won 69-59 against Georgia’s Inner Strength-Red and then upended the Central New Jersey Hawks in their night game.
North Carolina, though, began the first of four pool play games Friday morning with a spurt and then a sputter. Kowalewski’s bunch raced to a 12-3 lead against Georgia’s Inner Strength-Red, but his team coughed up possession, and Inner Strength slashed into the margin to make it 12-10 after a three-point basket late in the first quarter.
“Our guys got up early and thought we were going to walk away with it but they scored some points and got sloppy defensively. Then we didn’t take care of the ball, which is a deadly combination,” Kowalewski said.
An 8-0 run re-opened the Gaters lead, and 6-9 senior sensation Eladio Espinosa skated down the baseline from the corner and threw down an alley-oop dunk that brought dozens of coaches to take notice. Espinosa’s dunk seemed to cut down the energy level of an athletically-gifted Inner Strength squad, and the Gaters coasted from there.
“We got through the first-game jitters. We were a little sloppy, but we’ll take the win,” said Kowalewski.
Pool play wraps up tomorrow with playoff brackets leading to the AAU National Basketball Championship game next Wednesday night.
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