Although all of Friday’s games were canceled due to the weather, the 13th Annual Dick “Coach” O’Neill Jingle Ball Classic was held on Saturday in Monticello, featuring a matchup between the Monticello Panthers and the Valley Central Vikings boys’ basketball teams.

The tournament, which is held to benefit the Monticello High School Christmas Toy Drive, also serves as a way to honor beloved Coach Dick O’Neill, and the drive that is dear to his heart. The BCANY hall of famer, who had over 300 wins here, (406 overall) won 6 division titles and 5 Section IX championships, is equally known for his passionate commitment in serving this community during his 24 years working for the district as a coach and teacher.

   Coach O’Neill was on hand to preside over the festivities and help cheer on his former team. Unfortunately, his cheering, and the cheering of the boisterous home crowd, was not enough to help their Panthers prevail against the visiting Vikings. The talented Valley Central team won convincingly, 57-35.

The theme of the game was pressure, specifically, defensive pressure in the form of a full court press.

 From the start of the game, the Valley Central full court press harried the young Monticello players, forcing them into mistakes and leading to Valley Central’s 15-4 advantage at the end of the first quarter. 

In the second quarter Monticello started their own full court press, which became effective in slowing down Valley Central’s offense, but not enough. Valley Central led 32–11 at the half.

Monticello’s difficulties with the press continued into the second half. The Vikings rattled the home team on offense as the Panthers continued to struggle to score from the floor and from the foul line.

Valley Central moved the ball calmly and efficiently up the floor, connecting on most of their shots on offense. Ultimately, Valley Central’s ability to force Monticello into errors and take advantage of them secured their victory.

Valley Central’s leading scorers were Deven Lewis with 16 points and A.J. Brown with 14. Monticello’s Jayxander Vera Soto, Omari Ramos and Jasani Stovall all scored 7 points each.

Monticello head coach Chris Russo acknowledged, “We were better in the second half than the first. We have a young group who are prone to mistakes when the other team speeds us up, and Valley Central did a good job of doing that in the first half. We keep trying to make those adjustments, but with young kids it just takes time to learn those things and to play through them. Our response in the second half was good. We had our chances to cut the lead in the third quarter, but they did a good job at closing it out. We played hard for the whole game. We just weren’t sound with the basketball and got behind early.” Walkill defeated Chester 65-42 in the first game of the day. Walkill will play Chester in the championship game on January 3, at noon.