By Mitch Silver

The Rye Garnets Basketball team, coming off a loss 48 hours earlier to Yorktown, met Harrison the evening of January 7 in the annual Michael Ice Tournament. The event is named in memory of Michael Ice Jr., a Garnet basketball alum who lost his life several years ago and whose father donated the trophy the two teams compete for.

Both squads started the game in a zone, with Rye jumping out to an early lead on baskets by seniors Andrew Carroll and Sebastian Medina and sophomores Jake Kessner and Andrew Wilmarth. Senior Dalton Boisseau nailed a three-point shot to put the Garnets up 12-6 after one period of play.

The Huskies’ Matt McCoy also hit a three.

Harrison started to heat up in the second period, scoring 13 points and cutting the deficit to 22-19 at the half. The players and coaches started to heat up as well, with double technical fouls called before the quarter ended (each team made one shot from the stripe). Medina and fellow senior John Atkins both connected from beyond the arc to keep the Garnets up as the teams went to the locker room.

The third period was basically more of the same, with Rye holding the Huskies to nine points but connecting on only eight themselves. And yes, more technical fouls were called. Harrison hit a couple of baskets to pull into a tie at 28-all with 2:34 left in the third.

The final quarter saw the two teams discover their shooting eyes, with Harrison hitting four treys to keep things close. Rye high scorer Jake Kessner connected on seven of eight free throws and a three-pointer of his own to keep the Garnets ahead and ice the Michael Ice trophy.

Afterwards, Rye Head Coach John Aguilar praised his team’s defense. “We held them under 40 points until the last 30 seconds of the game, when they scored seven,” he said. “I’ll take that in a rivalry game like this one.”