Confident Zaki Gomez has career night for Norristown
WEST NORRITON >> It was more than a full quarter between field goal attempts for Zaki Gomez Friday night.
The Norristown senior made a pair of free throws to give the Eagles a one-point lead over Boyertown late in the third quarter and he extended their advantage to three shortly after with a layup in transition.
He didn’t take another shot until the final seconds of the game.
With the Pioneer Athletic Conference Liberty Division rivals tied at 42, Norristown had possession with 20 seconds left and held for the last shot. DJ Johnson started to drive to the right side of the paint with six seconds on the clock. He swung the ball to an open Gomez on the left wing and he drilled the three-pointer with 0.4 seconds remaining to lift the Eagles to a 45-42 win at Norristown Area High School.
Zaki Gomez game winner! 25 points for the senior. Norristown beats Boyertown 45-42. pic.twitter.com/CgpjS4adpF
— Ed Morlock (@emor09) January 15, 2022
“That’s just what we do at Norristown,” Gomez said. “We make big plays. We do it in practice and that’s what we do.”
Gomez was calling for the ball when the defense collapsed on Johnson driving in the lane. He showed zero hesitation putting up the game-winning shot and confidently held his right arm high as the ball swished through the net, capping off a career-high 25-point performance in which he hit four three-pointers and went 11-for-12 from the free-throw line.
Confidence has been crucial to Gomez’s development. He was on the Norristown varsity team as a sophomore in 2019-20, but didn’t see much playing time. After the Eagles didn’t compete during the 2020-21 season due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Gomez is getting his first real opportunity this year.
“His growth is his confidence,” Norristown head coach Dana Johnson said. “In 10th grade we were begging him to shoot. Amazingly, coach Joedy Johnson and coach (Rowan) Watson, I said you gotta come up with a plan for Zaki to shoot the ball. They told me you have to tell him he has to take three bad shots a game – he has to take three bad shots. I don’t care if they’re Steph Curry range, logo. That’s actually his green light. We tell him he has to take three bad shots and now he actually takes three good shots – every shot is a good shot. His confidence has grown because we just gave him the ultimate green light.”
“The coaches instill a lot of confidence in me,” Gomez said. “They believed in me before I believed in myself. It’s big ups to them and hard work.
“My coaches, they instill a lot of trust in me. They trust me a lot. They’re confident. When you have the confidence on the bench, you feel it on the court and let it fly.”
Friday was Gomez’s fourth game back after missing a couple weeks at the end of the 2021 calendar year with a high ankle sprain. He scored six points in his return against Perk Valley, 10 against Owen J. Roberts and 13 against Pottstown Thursday before dropping 25 against Boyertown.
He did most of his scoring in the first half. He hit a pair of three-pointers and went 4-for-4 from the free-throw line in the first quarter to score 10 of Norristown’s 12 points. He added eight more in the second, hitting a three and connecting on 5-of-6 from the charity stripe. He had 18 of Norristown’s 24 first-half points.
Gomez also plays a big role defensively. He had six deflections in Friday night’s win and helped the defense force 19 turnovers.
“He’s one of our key defenders,” Johnson said. “We couldn’t pressure the ball like we normally do (when Gomez was hurt), like we’re known for and too much of that responsibility relied on DJ to have to defend. It’s such a relief because now not only do we have another defender, but we have another shooter and we have senior leadership.”
The guard played a big role defensively in the fourth quarter, when Norristown grabbed seven turnovers and held the Bears to four points.
“Defense?” Gomez, who had four rebounds, asked. “That’s just what we do here. Norristown is a staple for defense. Allowing four points in the fourth quarter, that’s really not necessarily normal, but that’s what we try to do every night.”
