Eddie Castro Sports

Thomas Jefferson’s Raheem Dunn and Shamorie Ponds Co MVP’s of City Championship Game.

It was Jefferson’s Raheem Dunn and Shamorie Ponds who formed into quite a tag team in shredding apart Lincoln High School en route to an impressive 90-61 victory over the Rail Splitters in Saturday’s PSAL City Championship game at Madison Square Garden. With taking down one of Brooklyn’s powerhouse high school basketball programs, Jefferson won their first championship since 1954.

Dunn and Ponds were named co-MVPs of the game scoring 70 of the team’s 90 points (yes, that’s correct). Dunn had 23 points, 5 rebounds and 2 assists and simply told reporters after the game, “We wanted this badly”. He certainly put his words into perspective. His teammate, Ponds, was not too shabby himself scoring a game-high 31 points, 12 rebounds, 5 assists and 5 steals. Talk about video game numbers, the young man went to work. Ponds, who is a senior at Jefferson and has committed to the University of St. John’s, had a great game in front of his future head coach, former NBA player and St. John’s alum Chris Mullin. In the Brooklyn Borough Championship game, Jefferson lost to Lincoln and from that game coming into the City Championship, the team knew it had to play much better. Jefferson coach Lawrence Pollar said he’s rode his player so hard in practice that week it was almost like verbal abuse. As we all know, the old cliché “practice makes you perfect”. Although the team was not perfect, they excelled and learned from their lost to Lincoln and got the job done in probably the biggest win in the program’s history.

The boys from Jefferson High will now focus their attention to the state Federation Championships, which takes place in Albany next weekend and from the way coach Pollar is sounding of late, his appetite for winning isn’t full just yet. “I’m greedy. I want to win. We still have work to get done.” Ponds summed it up by saying, “We still have unfinished business”. Congrats to both Brooklyn high school teams for great seasons thus far.

Sports Notes: (College Hoops) Who will be crowned this year’s 2015-16 National Champs? E-mail me and share your tournament brackets with me at Castroeddie714@Gmail.com.