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Phelps School picks up first win in Watkins' return

12/08/2014, 10:00pm EST

By Tom Reifsnyder

Senior point guard Quincy McKnight, a Sacred Heart commit, scored 12 points and helped Phelps get its first win of the season. (Photo: Josh Verlin)

In just his third game in a Phelps uniform, Antanas Krimelis had an opportunity to bring the crowd to its feet.

After hitting a 3-pointer in the opening moments of the second quarter, Krimelis intercepted a careless cross-court pass and made his way down the court for what he, and everyone else in the gym, thought would be a highlight dunk.

Krimelis cocked the ball back with his right hand and threw it down with authority, but it didn’t find the bottom of the net. Instead, the ball ricocheted off the rim and soared into the first row. Krimelis shook his head as he walked off the court toward head coach Brian Shanahan, who promptly pulled him after missing the dunk attempt.

“I think it’s an early lesson, an early lesson for him… how he reacts when he misses and then gets taken out is a barometer of where his maturity was and he’s getting better,” Shanahan said.

The 6-foot-5 Lithuanian wing finished with 13 points in Phelps’ 74-62 win over the Peddie School at Friends’ Central. Krimelis was a key catalyst in the victory, but his up-and-down performance also epitomized a potential issue for Phelps: maturity.

For a team that has eight seniors, you wouldn’t think maturity would be something to worry about.

However, Krimelis, like his teammates, still have a lot of learning to do in Shanahan’s eyes.

“He’s growing up, and his maturity has to get there,” he said. “But he can do some things that are very good.

“He’s a very good student, he’s a respectful and mature young man… but he’s just got to mature as a basketball player.”

Krimelis was a standout today, but Phelps senior Mike Watkins stole the show.

The 6-9 Penn State commit, who missed the majority of his team’s first two games due to an injury, led Phelps in scoring with 16 points as he dazzled spectators with an array of powerful finishes.

Watkins’ performance essentially dictated the flow of the game. He kept his cool for the majority of the contest, which Phelps led from start to finish, but when his shots stopped falling, Watkins lost his composure.

With just under five minutes remaining in the fourth quarter, Watkins was assessed a technical foul for arguing with a referee after a missed shot attempt.

Peddie senior guard Everson Davis, who finished with 16 points, knocked down both technical free throws and then proceeded to score again on a driving layup that cut the lead to 11 (66-55).

“We just can’t lose our heads,” Shanahan said. “We’re growing up.

“For a lot of our guys it’s the first time where they’re really growing up on their own playing basketball at school in a boarding school environment, so these games are a test.”

Peddie made one final push to cut the Phelps lead to eight (68-60) with under three minutes to go in the game, but it wasn’t enough to capture the lead they sought for so long.

Senior Sukhjot Bains, a 6-6 Canadian wing, led Peddie in scoring with 20 points while 6-2 senior guard C.J. Davis chipped in 12.

Aside from Krimelis and Watkins, Phelps had a pretty balanced scoring attack on the day: Sacred Heart commit Quincy McKnight had 12 points and Palumbo transfer Anwar Epps had 10 while Monmouth commit Mustapaha Traore and Oriol Tres each dropped in 8.

Senior point guard Daron Curry finished with 7 points but didn’t appear one hundred percent recovered from an ankle injury he sustained in a loss to the Hun School of Princeton.

Although Phelps led for the entire game, Shanahan still has concerns about his team’s resiliency in tough moments.

“Today I think our energy was pretty good most of the time, but it’s going to be our resiliency and how we react when things don’t go well for us; we don’t get that call, we don’t get that rebound, we get scored on, we miss that shot… how we react to that,” he said. “And then do we keep competing and keep our focus.

“I think that’s going to be the big thing for us.”

Up next for Phelps (1-2) is Malvern Prep at Malvern on Monday, Dec. 8.