Memo Zabala zeroes in on career 1,000-point mark as a disappointing Rams hoops season winds down

January 24, 2024 at 11:10 p.m.

Senior Guillermo “Memo” Zabala intercepts the ball from an Ossining player and proceeds to score for the Rams in last Friday’s (1/19) home loss to the Pride. Zabala is 70 points short of a 1,000-point career mark. (Lennon Anderson/Westmore News)

Upsets happen in sports. Underdogs rise up to beat the highly-rated fat cats. But that hasn't happened for Port Chester's varsity basketball Rams. No upsets so far as this disappointing winter season of hoops discontent winds down. Upsettingly. Because the beat goes on.

In the last week or so, the Rams lost once again to Ossining, this time by a score of 69-29. That's a loss by 40 points. And that represents a moral victory because the last time they met, Ossining won by a score of 105-33—the only time the Rams allowed a team to go over the century mark in the past two decades.

That came on the heels of Ram losses to New Rochelle by a score of 71-34 and 79-61 to Carmel.

But even in those losses, one constant emerged beyond the losing—the statistics show that the Rams have one player who can compete against the best even while the bottom line shows the team can't.

Zabala top scorer

In their most recent losses, for example, Port Chester's Dominican Republic transfer Guillermo (Memo) Zabala, one of the highest scorers in Section One last year when he made the All-Conference team, scored 19 against an Ossining team that double and triple teamed him, 32 against White Plains, another top 10 Westchester team that stacked their defense against him, and a season-high 45 against Saunders of Yonkers in a rare 67-65 win in which he simply took over the game and refused to let his team lose, albeit against one of the area's lesser teams.

But Memo has already shown he can score against anybody with his wide assortment of drives and outside shots, all coming off dazzling change of pace moves that come with race car-like acceleration.

    Senior Ryan Gagnon attempts to make a comeback against Ossining on Friday, Jan. 19 after being down at halftime.
 By Lennon Anderson   

What does that prove?

Primetime player

Port Chester isn't quite ready for primetime hoops, but Zabala is.

So much so that he is quietly just 70 points short of the 1,000-point career mark in two varsity seasons in which he has usually been the Rams’ main offensive threat and sometimes seemingly its only real scoring threat—Ryan Gagnon was the only Ram to score in double figures (12) against Saunders, for example, while Kesley Siqueira had seven points.

That means Zabala is running out of time to hit the century mark with four games remaining on the schedule starting with Senior Night against Lincoln at home Friday (1/26) at 6:30 p.m. followed by away games against Fox Lane Wednesday (1/31) at 5:30 p.m. and Lincoln on Friday (2/2) at 5 p.m. The season is scheduled to wind down against Greeley at home on an upcoming Tuesday (2/6) at 5 p.m.

The Lincoln contests could well be winnable games with the Foxes and Greeley in the category of upset specials.

Whatever happens, Ram Nation is expected to be out in force to root for Zabala and his fellow seniors on their big night, those players including solid hoop ballers like baseball players Gagnon and Joey Ciciriello, distance runner Orhan Eski (perhaps the smartest kid in the school), football quarterback Nathan Provencher, David Pascual, Walquidi Valerio Sosa and Siqueira.

Juniors Shawn Cheriyan, Xavier Tapia, Daniel Ebol and Ranbir Singh would like nothing better than to team up with sophomores Angel Mata and Brandon Flores Alvarez to send their seniors out with a big home win and maybe come through with a few closing upsets in the remaining winter season games, something they haven't been able to do so far. And, of course, everybody is rooting for Zabala to hit the century mark before his Port Chester career ends.