The Patriots (16-7) traveled to Zion Benton High School (2-17) on what was their Senior Night and came out victorious over the Zee-Bees on Feb. 2, improving their record to 17-7. After a bit of a slow start, Stevenson took control and went on to win 62-40.
Despite a disappointing loss against the Lake Forest Scouts on Tuesday night, the Patriots got going on both sides of the ball. Offensively, the team was led by Rocco Pagliocca ’26 who put up 18 points and Jack Dabbs ’24 with 16. On the defensive side, it was the Patriots in the passing lanes and the work on the glass led by Kelvin Clement ’24 that held the Zee-Bees to 40 points.
The Zee-Bees came out of the gate ready to play in the first 4 minutes, building an 11-6 lead over the Patriots leaving Stevenson Head Coach William Benson with no choice but to call a timeout with 4:05 remaining in the first quarter.
“This was the first game that I think in a while we came out a little flat energy wise.” Benson said. “I thought in the back of my mind if that happened we’d go [to] Kelvin early because he plays with a lot of energy and does a great job of infusing some energy into our team.”
Benson’s timeout and the huddle proved to be the spark that the Patriots needed. Pagliocca and Dabbs did the rest, knocking down a pair of 3’s each. Coupled with Clement’s energy on defense, Stevenson was able to wrap up the first quarter leading the Zee-Bees 24-13.
Going into the second quarter, the Patriots offense was continuing to build on their lead thanks to a big throwdown at the rim by Atticus Richmond ’25 and Pagliocca catching fire with 9 points in the quarter sending the Patriots into halftime with 37 points to Zion Benton’s 21.
“After giving up 11 points, we gave up 10 in the last 12 minutes of the half.” Benson said. “We kept forcing them to miss shots, and we kept rebounding. They were getting one shot, and we’d have someone on the glass grabbing the rebound.”
In the second half, the Patriots continued to build a lead over the Zee-Bees holding them to a quarter low of 6 points, thanks to some stellar defense and tough rebounding. In the third quarter, Dabbs and Bardic kept warm with 7 points each in the frame. The Patriots take a 54-27 lead heading into the fourth quarter.
In the fourth quarter, the Patriots were able to keep up the third quarter energy. The Zee-Bees were able to score 13 points in the games final 8 minutes because of some late free throws, and the Patriots were able to get nearly the whole team involved getting some run in with bench players like Jayden Daube ’24 and Spencer Flynn ’25 who were each able to put up a bucket in the frame. The Patriots would go on to be victorious picking up a much needed win over Zion Benton 62-40.
“It’s good when you hold a team to [about] 40.” Benson said. “We made some shots, [and] I thought transition wise, we were pretty good. I’d like to see us have some more balance on offense.”
Although the Patriots ended up on the side of victory on Friday night, the work wasn’t done for the weekend. The Patriots played Friday night’s game as the first of two games this weekend with the Guilford Vikings on tap for Saturday night.
“Going into tomorrow night and going forward, we need to make sure we play together all plays of the game and make sure when adversity hits that we all stick together.” Bardic said. “I have to do a better job of that as the point guard on the team keeping us all together when things aren’t going well.”
