skip navigation

Sobelman's clutch plays help Shipley survive Phelps in OT

12/01/2016, 8:15pm EST
By Josh Verlin

Josh Verlin (@jmverlin)
--

When his shot wasn’t falling, Shipley’s Tommy Sobelman remembered what his older brother Pete reminded him of often: stay positive. Find a different way to help the team win.

And when the time came, Sobelman stepped up.

With teammates Sam Sessoms and Kiyon Hardy leading the charge offensively, the Gators’ 6-foot-3 junior forward came up with a trio of clutch plays in overtime to help Shipley to a 69-55 win over visiting Phelps School on Thursday afternoon.

After Sessoms, the team’s standout junior guard, scored the first four points of the extra session, Sobelman came up with a big defensive play, standing his ground in front of a Phelps player and taking a charge a minute into the period.

Shipley (2-0) didn’t look back from there, holding Phelps (0-3) scoreless in the extra four minutes for the deceptively large margin of victory.

“The charge was probably was one of the biggest plays we had all game, that play was really crucial,” said Hardy, a senior, who finished with 21 points and five steals in the win. “Without that play, I don’t even know if we would have won the game.”

Sobelman -- whose brother, a 2016 Shipley grad, was a three-year varsity player -- wasn’t done helping his team pull away. Running on a 3-on-1 fast break, he took a feed from Hardy and dished off to fellow junior Eli Gorrell for an open layup; the next time down the court, he followed up on a Sessoms miss with an easy put-back to stretch the lead to 10.

Those were his only points of the game, but his eight rebounds, two assists and a steal were plenty to keep him happy afterwards.

“I’m always going to have stretches where my shot doesn’t fall, it’s my goal just to stay confident and keep on battling,” he said. “If my shot falls, oh well, but I’m going to do whatever it takes to help the team get the ‘W.’”

Shipley fifth-year head coach Phil D’Ambrosio was more than pleased with the Villanova native’s ability to bounce back from missing his first five shots from the floor.

“He has a tendency to get down on himself...he can be his own worst critic,” D’Ambroio said. “It was ‘keep your head in the game,’ and it’s great that he was able to make some big plays for us down the stretch because from a momentum standpoint, it’s going to help his confidence a long way.”


Kiyon Hardy (above) attacks the rim for two of his 21 points in Shipley's overtime win. (Photo: Josh Verlin/CoBL)

Sessoms finished with 27 points, 23 of which came in the second half and overtime; the 5-10 point guard with Division I schools tracking him also finished with six rebounds, five assists and three steals. Hardy carried the load early, with 16 of his 21 in the first two quarters.

In a battle of athletic 6-foot-9 big men, Phelps School post-grad Tim Perry, Jr. had 14 points and nine rebounds to lead the Lions. Shipley’s Ray Somerville, a reclassified sophomore and Penncrest transfer, finished with nine points and six rebounds, going 5-of-6 from the foul line.

Phelps had momentum at both the half (30-27) and after three quarters (49-41), but Shipley’s defense clamped down. The Gators limited the Lions to just six points in the fourth quarter and none in overtime; Phelps shot 2-for-17 from the floor during that span.

“We told them it’s a game of runs, keep playing through it, (and) they did, pushed the whole way through,” D’Ambrosio said. “We only gave up six points to these guys between the fourth quarter and overtime alone, and that says a lot when you’re talking about 12 minutes of basketball, to only give up six points to a good team.”


Recruiting News:

HS Coverage:

Tag(s): Home  Old HS  Josh Verlin  Friends' Schools (B)  Shipley School  Phelps School