By TIM TAYLORTioga County Sports Report
SPENCER — The new year didn’t get any easier for the Spencer-Van Etten boys basketball team, which opened 2025 with a 94-24 loss to state-ranked Union Springs here Friday night.
The Wolves, ranked 19th in Class C, ran out to a 21-2 lead and never looked back.
“They shot well and really their transition, that was huge too,” S-VE coach Kyle Pierce said. “They were quick.
“With being young, we're still kind of adapting to the speed of the game so that's one thing that those moments can't really simulate until you're in a game situation.”
With six members of the roster returning from the 2023-24 team, Union Springs outmatched their host in experience and would build a 28-8 first-quarter lead.
The Wolves’ Aaron Johnson, an IAC all-star, pumped out 13 of his game-high 28 points and Rocco Testa added 10 of his 26 in the period. Johnson connected for a pair of 3-pointers and made all three of his free throw attempts.
The Union Springs defense took it up a notch in the second stanza, keeping the Panthers off the scoreboard to build a 58-8 halftime cushion. Johnson and Testa scored eight and six points, respectively, and Cooper DeChick contributed eight more.
Junior Luukas Carling, one of seven players who moved up from last year’s JV team, had six points for S-VE at the break and sophomore Noah Ingram added the other two.
“We're learning kind of trial by fire here, but we're doing a good job trying to take the positives from each game and building on them, and also kind of looking at the areas that we need to keep building on,” Pierce said. “We're really trying to focus on cleaning up the game as a whole.”
The Wolves scored the first five points of the second half before S-VE got on the scoreboard on a pair of Carling free throws. Union Springs then went on a 15-4 run to make it 78-14 heading into the fourth with Carling notching a pair of baskets for the Panthers.
Sophomore Nevin Mack canned a pair of field goals in the final frame for S-VE while Carling, junior Jackson Bennett and senior Chris Merrick accounted for one bucket apiece.
Merrick is the lone player back from last year’s team while Ingram, Mack, sophomores Keith Hills and Cameron Sundqvist, and junior Clayton Bennett are the others joining Carling from the JV ranks. S-VE also added two newcomers in senior Nollan Hyer and junior Theo Mueller-Steinhardt.
The Panthers battled to the end despite the fact Union Springs built a lopsided advantage.
“We've been playing four quarters of basketball,” Pierce said. “They're not giving up. We don't have a hey, we're throwing in the towel right here at the end. We're fighting all four quarters and really trying to build as a team, and that's something that we are going to be very proud of and keep trying to build on going forward.”
Union Springs improves to 6-2 on the season, both losses coming against state-ranked opponents. The Wolves had three other players join Johnson and Testa in double figures. DeChick had 13, Brown scored a dozen and Orion Rusinko tacked on 11.
Carling led the Panthers with 14 points, nine rebounds and two blocks; Mack had four points, Ingram added two points, two steals and one block; Hils grabbed four boards and blocked one shot; Merrick and Bennett chipped in with two points each; Mueller-Steinhardt pulled down three rebounds; and Sundqvist tacked on a block.
S-VE (0-6) visits Candor Tuesday.
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