Grant Street rallies for All-Star win over Grebb All-Stars
Ed Thompson
Budd Grebb League’s Philip Pace puts up a shot while being pressured by Grant Street’s Malik Ramsey during Saturday’s All-Star game at Mechanic Street Park in California. Ramsey scored 19 of his 24 points in the second half to earn MVP honors and help Grant Street to rally for a 76-68 win.
Grant Street's Billy DeShields Jr. drives to the basket during Saturday's All-Star game against the Budd Grebb League at California. DeShields scored 24 points in Grant Street's 75-68 victory
Budd Grebb's Lyndon Henderson drives hard to the basket under duress from Grant Street's Tyrese Jackson during Saturday's All-Star game at the Mechanic Street Park in California.
Budd Grebb's JJ Green puts up a shot while being defended by Grant Street's Tyrese Jackson during Saturday's All-Star game at the Mechanic Street Park in California.
Grant Street's Jalen Rogers gets a hand in the face of Budd Grebb's Philip Pace during Saturday's All-Star game at Mechanic Street Park in California.
CALIFORNIA — A year ago, the Grant Street All-Stars had a 10-point lead over the Budd Grebb All-Stars but blew the lead and lost the game.
Saturday night, the roles were reversed as Grant found itself down 15 points but roared back to win the game, 76-68.
“This is about bragging rights and this is my third time coaching (in this game) and it is our first win in those three games,” Grant Street coach Ray Robinson said while not being able to contain his happiness and smile. “We played hard and started hitting shots.”
Grebb coach Naz Victoria, who admitted he hates to lose at anything, was not happy that his team came up short.
“We stopped playing defense and they caught fire from three-point land,” he said. “We made a couple of bonehead moves to give them a run at the end of the first half.
“They beat us on the boards and they came to play.”
Down 40-25 late in the first half, Grant forced Grebb into a turnover and closed the half on a 5-0 run to grab the momentum.
Grebb was sloppy on the turnover when it could have held for the last shot, and it never scored more than four points consecutively in the second half.
Game MVP Malik Ramsey (Laurel Highlands) scored 19 of his 24 points in the second half, including scoring eight straight points to trim the Grebb lead from 46-34 to 46-42.
Ramsey’s run sparked Grant’s comeback, who took a 60-58 lead with 4:32 remaining for its first lead since it was 2-0 to open the game. Grebb did not get any closer than three points the rest of the game.
Billy DeShields, Jr. (Uniontown) also scored 24 points for Grant while Chris Peccon (Ringgold) led 21 points for Grebb.
Philip Pace (Brownsville) and Lyndon Henderson (formerly of Monessen) each added 13 points for Grebb, but each were plagued by foul problems.
“We were in foul trouble and had to pull Lyndon out with 7:54 to play,” said Victoria, who had not lost a game as a coach at Mechanic Street Park in over two years. “Our offense sputtered outside of Peccon.”
Robinson closed with pride about the win.
“We are taking it back to Grant,” he said. “The kids didn’t give up when we fell behind and had a different mentality this year.”