PEAK PERFORMANCE: Derrick Woods of Iron Peak drives to the hoop in a game earlier this season in the Princeton Recreation Department Men’s Summer Basketball League. Last Friday, Woods scored 15 points to help Iron Peak edge J Majeski Foundation 51-50 as it improved to 2-2. (Photo by Frank Jacobs III)
By Bill Alden
Coming into this season, the Iron Peak team had a target on its back as the Princeton Recreation Department Men’s Summer Basketball League got underway.
Having won the league’s best-of-three championship series last year when it was known as Lob City, the squad lost two of its first three games this summer.
“It is definitely a rough start,” said Iron Peak star Derrick Woods, who was named as the Foreal Wooten Playoff MVP last season. “We have had some players not showing up, it is hard to play with six players. We won the championship last year so everybody knows what I can do and they try to stop me and they try to take away Myles [Mitchell-White].”
Last Friday, Woods and his teammates found themselves in another rough contest as they faced the J Majeski Foundation, a squad comprised of players from The College of New Jersey men’s hoops team.
Iron Peak was clinging to a 26-23 lead heading into the second half and found itself down 50-48 with two minutes left in regulation. Down the stretch, Woods got a bucket and drained a free throw as Iron Peak pulled out a 51-50 victory in the heated contest.
“It was up and down, we were going back and forth,” said Woods, who ended up with 15 points in the win with Mitchell-White tallying 17. “We were talking a lot of trash back and forth, it is going to happen. You have to keep your head level.”
Woods took things to the next level in the second half as he dominated in the paint, grabbing a number of rebounds and utilizing some power moves inside to score nine points over the last 20 minutes of the contest.
“When I see that we need me down there and we need me posting up, I will get down there,” said the 6’8, 225-pound Woods, a former St. Peter’s standout who has been playing pro ball overseas the last six years. “I am better facilitating, everybody knows my game. They know I am a great post player with good footwork. It is tough to stop me when I do get in that mode.”
In order for Iron Peak to achieve a title repeat, it will need to toughen up.
“Right now we are playing a little more freely but we have to get into roles more,” said Woods, who won’t be playing a role in the playoff push as he headed to play in a pro league in Mexico after starring in Argentina last winter. “It is players knowing their roles more because some people who should have the ball at certain times and stuff like that. We definitely have to do better defensively.”