CORTLAND —
Jefferson boys basketball coach Jeremy Huber expected a dogfight and he got one.
It took some big plays from Justin Butler and Troy Bloom when it mattered most in the final quarter for the Falcons to turn away the Lakeview Bulldogs in All-American Conference play, 55-46.
“Lakeview is competitive and they play hard,” Huber said. “They have a lot of pride. They play physical. They’re going to rebound. They’re not out of the game with them. They’re going to fight and fight and claw — trying to win the game.”
The Falcons played without 6-foot-7 junior center David Chase, who will have surgery today to repair a broken bone in his right hand. The big guy hopes to return before the end of the regular season.
For one of the few times this season, the Bulldogs marched out to a quick 8-3 advantage only to see the Falcons run off a 15-0 stretch to close out the quarter.
“We do that every game,” Lakeview coach Craig Mild said. “This is the first game we actually got off to a decent start. We go through highs and lows. It’s almost like we’re bipolar. We play good for three minutes and then we’ll play bad for the next eight to 10 minutes and dig ourselves holes.”
Mild’s description was right on again as Lakeview began to claw back into the game thanks in large part to Jefferson’s 3-for-10 shooting from the charity stripe.
The Falcons were cruising for the first three minutes of the quarter while maintaining a 13-point advantage and were attacking the basket at will. Though getting fouled by Lakeview helped to slow the pace of the game down and stopped shots from dropping in the case of Jefferson.
“They did a good job of putting some pressure on us,” Huber said. “I thought our kids did a good job though of handling that full-court pressure. We got some isos a couple times trying to get some easy scores put up.”
Though the Bulldogs continued to battle through and erased Jefferson’s 10 point halftime advantage and made it 37-34 going into the final quarter. By that time though, too much had been put into the comeback Lakeview made just two field goals in the final four minutes of the game.
“The kids were playing hard for us and then they gassed out,” Mild said. “We can’t climb that hill every day to constantly come back. When we get back to where we need to be, we don’t have the legs or energy to get over that hump. We do not put 32 minutes of basketball together. “
Still, those shots from Butler and Bloom took it from 44-41 Jefferson to 51-41 in a span of a minute and closed whatever Lakeview had left.
“We just try to keep getting better every day,” Huber said. “A lot of the teams are equal in strength. You can win or lose any night.”
Fortune is a freelance writer from McDonald.
Sports
Falcons find a way at Lakeview
Jefferson overcomes sluggish start to notch AAC triumph
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Geneva, Edgewood win in J-Town
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Johnson: Browns will be better
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Skleres finds good fit
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Lakers ousted by LaBrae
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Scholastic Statistics:
BASEBALL
DIVISION I
SECTIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP
Fitch 10, Lakeside 1
at Fitch -
Scholastic Schedule:
SATURDAY, MAY 18
Baseball
n No events scheduled -
Top to bottom
For a team to score a number of runs in a softball game, the bottom portion of a lineup has to string a couple of hits together at least once.
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Falcons fly to sectional title
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Area High School Baseball Statistical Leaders:
INDIVIDUAL BATTING (minimum 45 at-bats)
PLAYER SCHOOL AVG OB% SLG% AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI SB
Chase Thurber PV .548 .642 .790 62 24 34 10 1 1 25 13
Tim Cross PV .492 .528 .667 63 24 31 9 1 0 25 12
Louie Wisnyai Edgewood .492 .559 .763 59 17 29 8 1 2 26 8
Tony Magda Edgewood .483 .552 .603 58 14 28 5 1 0 19 6
Joey Piscsalko Jefferson .471 .548 .571 70 23 33 7 0 0 19 14
Scott Davidson Jefferson .464 .519 .623 69 20 32 7 2 0 10 8 -
Lakeside rolls past East
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Geneva, Edgewood win in J-Town
