Patriots neutralize Red Storm
SARANAC LAKE — The Saranac Lake boys basketball team struggled against a rock solid AuSable Valley defense Wednesday night, falling to the visitors 63-39.
The first quarter was evenly matched, with both the Red Storm and the Patriots going back and forth and not scoring many points. AuSable Valley held a 9-8 lead at the end of 8 minutes of play.
The second quarter started out as a continuation of the first, but the Patriots got an early jump and built a four-point lead. But Saranac Lake’s Jarrett Ashton drained a 3-pointer from the left corner to bring the Red Storm within one.
AuSable Valley pulled away again as the quarter wore on. The home team rallied a bit late in the quarter, but the Patriots’ superior defense kept Saranac Lake away from the basket. Saranac Lake was down 24-16 going into halftime.
AuSable Valley then came out of halftime with a smothering defense. Saranac Lake struggled to get the ball near the basket, and had an even harder time scoring. By the midway point of the third, the Patriots were up 38-22.
Ashton again sank a 3 to rally the crowd, but AuSable Valley’s Joel Martineau answered with a 3 of his own to silence the home crowd. Martineau had a game-high of 24, including two 3s that were drained from way outside the arc.
Saranac Lake’s players were disheartened as the game wore on and the Patriots built an ever-expanding lead. The Red Storm’s shooting was abysmal at the end of the third, and AuSable Valley took a 45-30 lead into the final quarter.
Saranac Lake used the opening play of the final quarter to show more ball movement, even as attempts at the hoop fell apart. The team kept swinging the ball from side to side and eventually funneled it underneath to DJ Morgan who sank an easy shot.
Martineau made his second 3 from about eight feet outside the arc, but was answered by Saranac Lake’s Ethan Paye, who got his only points of the night on a 3-pointer of his own. Paye’s shot was a crowd-pleaser, but the Patriots continued to pull away before the end of regulation.
Ashton led the Storm with 20 points on the night, but the team managed to spread the ball around and have eight players put points on the board. DJ Morgan had five, while Jordan Moore and Paye each put up three. Emery Swanson, Ziahad Cecujanin, Emmitt Bevelaqua and Brooks Fletcher each contributed two points.
While Martineau put up the most points of the night, AuSable Valley’s Louis Perez contributed 14 and both Mason Douglas and Carter Matzel added seven apiece.
Although the Red Storm dropped the game, coach Dermott Morgan was pleased with some of what he saw.
“They’re a good ball club,” Morgan said. “We ran with them in the first quarter, but you’ve got to score. We’re not a great shooting team. We had some great looks at the basket, [but] we had a tough time trying to get ball inside against that zone [defense]. You’ve gotta score more than 38, 39 points against a team like that.”
Morgan said the two teams are likely to see each other later in the season, and there’s room for the Red Storm to improve before that happens.
“We got it on film, so we can prepare for that next time,” he said. “We started to go on a run, but we couldn’t get the stops at the other end. I think the better team won tonight.”
Patriots coach Jaime Douglas thought his boys were a little sloppy in the tighter first half, but saw plenty to like in the second half.
“We’re finally coming together,” he said. “They’re a great group of kids with good team chemistry. We stepped up our zone defense today. We wanted to come in and play man to man, but the way Ashton was shooting, we had to go to some kind of box and one [zone] to stop him.
“We just came up and played good defense. So we’re going to take out the good points on our defense and work on our offense.”
Swanson, a senior, said the loss was tough to swallow.
“It was a tough loss, but I was proud of our team that we stayed with it throughout the whole game and played hard until the end,” he said. “They were really good at fast-breaking. Especially right at the beginning of the [second] half, they had the momentum right away and that kind of killed us.
“We kept good energy all the way through. In the fourth quarter, even though it was a big deficit, we still tried to battle back.”
Saranac Lake next plays St. Lawrence at the North Country Community College gym on Saturday at 1:30 p.m.