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STAMFORD, Conn. After stunning second-ranked Rye earlier in the week, the King Low Heywood Thomas boys basketball team was aware of the threat of a letdown on Friday. And for almost the entire first half, the last-place St. Lukes Storm pressured to make that happen.
It turned out to be just a scare, however, as the Vikings found their shooting stroke and pulled away. Drew Sawyer and Matt Reggina combined for 39 points while Guilbert Francois posted another double-double en route to a 64-53 thrashing of St. Lukes.
St. Lukes jumped out to an early 11-5 lead thanks to some rare solid shooting by the Storm. After an early time out, King adjusted to St. Lukes defense and soon was having its way with its opponent.
We really feed off our defensive energy and thats what we talked about in that first time out. We just got off to a slow start and we werent playing in the principles of our defense, King head coach Greg Dobbs said. Rye was a huge win for us, so we wanted to make sure going into somebody elses gym on a Friday night we werent going to have a letdown.
Sawyer caught fire and helped King finish the half on a 16-6 run. He netted 15 of his 21 points on the afternoon in the first half.
King pulled away in the second half and led by as many as 22 points, echoing the Vikings first win this season against St. Lukes. Reggina and Francois took over the scoring in the final 16 minutes. Reggina finished with 18 points while Francois netted 13 and pulled down a game-high 18 rebounds.
Ive been coming to this gym for four years and theres always a lot of hype here, Reggina said of the always-raucous St. Lukes fans. We just had to settle down and do what we do. Drew and I are on the same page right now and its feeling good.
With the win, King improves to 7-7 (3-3 conference), pulling to .500 for the first time this season. The Vikings will face their toughest test of the season on Wednesday when they host top-ranked Hamden Hall for a 5:45 p.m. game.
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