‘Playing At A Really High Level’: Sharks Rebound From Difficult Start

HARWICH – Monomoy boys basketball has bounced back in a big way from what was about as grating a start to a season for a team as could be imagined. 

Three points, six points and two points were the deficits the Sharks fell by, in order, in their first four games of the year. Twelve points combined. Four coin flips in a row. All of them landed the wrong way for Monomoy. 

They fought, stayed in every game and had a chance in each to win at the end (one loss came in overtime), but either way, the start put Monomoy in a hole that grew to 0-6. They needed one game to change their fortunes and eventually got it with a 59-37 win against Cape Tech, which opened a four-game win streak. That spun the Sharks around from dead in the water to, having gotten to 4-7 (as of Tuesday), solidly in state tournament contention in a matter of a couple weeks.

“We all tried to come together and motivate each other, and it started picking up and then eventually led us to having that four streak,” senior Zach Martin said.

After finally getting their first win in convincing (and perhaps cathartic) fashion, Monomoy set their targets on an approach of one game at a time. They proceeded to travel to Sandwich and win a close game there. That week, head coach John McCarthy said, the energy was a little different. Since then, their confidence has skyrocketed. The practices have been great. They’ve gotten back to exactly where they thought they could be at the season’s start.

“I just feel like I'm super proud of them, and we've now put ourselves with a fighter's chance to still make the tournament,” McCarthy said. “I think with our schedule — the remaining schedule — we have a good chance, because these guys are playing at a really high level at the moment.”

Monomoy rounded out the streak with an overtime win against Nauset (junior Dez Wall hit a game-tying 3-pointer with 11 seconds left in regulation) and a 20-point blowout against Dennis-Yarmouth. A 59-53 loss at Martha’s Vineyard last Friday finally ended the turnaround stretch.

A crucial aspect to the Sharks finding their footing and digging out game by game from 0-6 was just getting healthy. They were down seniors Tyler Ayer and Toneek Pryce while also dealing with other sporadic injuries — this for a team that expected to pride itself on operating as a complete unit. Without their full complement of players, Monomoy struggled. But with Ayer and Pryce now back and serving as important factors in Monomoy’s four wins, the Sharks can employ the style of play they wanted to.

“We can play full-court man and we can put pressure on the team and we can game plan our man-to-man defense and matchups based on size and speed and strength and all of that,” McCarthy said. “And before that, our rotation was so small that I had to kind of protect what we were doing, and now this gives me more options.”

Their returns also took the pressure off other players, who proceeded to start playing better. As a result, Monomoy got over the hump of the coldwater plunge that was their first three weeks to the season — a death by a thousand cuts of back-to-back-to-back-to-back losses by one or two possessions.

“I feel like everyone's been putting in the effort, and when we get in game, everyone's been playing hard, playing as a team,” Martin said.