By TIM TAYLORTioga County Sports Report
NEWARK VALLEY — The Newark Valley boys basketball team has dealt with adversity since before the season began, yet the Cardinals found themselves one victory away from a spot in the postseason Friday evening.
NV hung with visiting Trumansburg for a quarter, but the state-ranked Blue Raiders dominated the second quarter with strong defense and scoring to pull away for an 83-55 IAC crossover victory here.
“You can't turn the ball over against that team,” said NV coach Scott Stratton. “They live on the transition and that's kind of what happened. We played a really hard-fought one last night with a limited bench, and I wasn't sure exactly where our energy levels would be. I could see just a little bit of a drop-off in some of that energy,, like in the form of mental mistakes. That's a little of what happened in that stretch in the second quarter.”
T-burg scored the first nine points of the period to turn a three-point edge into a 28-16 advantage, then broke things open with a 14-2 run.
Anthony Dougher would sink a field goal and a free throw for NV, but the visitors used three-pointers from Aidan Clark-Cabezas and Elias Parker to build a 54-19 cushion.
Austin Green would get on the scoreboard for the Cardinals, but T-burg notched the final two buckets of the half to make it 58-21 at the break.
Newark Valley would make a valiant effort as it attempted to battle back in the second half.
“We just continued to battle,” Stratton said. “It was nice. This group has really kind of found its footing in the last month or so of the season and, you know, they enjoy playing with each other. They get frustrated like anybody would get frustrated, but they pick their heads up as soon as they realize that they're looking down at the ground and carrying the negativity with them. One reminder usually gets them back into a positive mindset.”
Tim Wojtysiak nailed a trey and scored seven straight points, and Dougher added a three-ball and a free throw in the third quarter, but Newark Valley was only able to make up one point and trailed, 74-38, heading into the final frame.
Tristan Veruto started the fourth quarter off with a pair of free throws, and Wojtysiak and Dougher hit back-to-back three-pointers before the Raiders could find the inside of the hoop. Veruto would add a trey midway through the period.
Dougher led NV with 18 points, including a trio of threes, and Wojtysiak contributed 15 points with a pair of trey. Veruto added nine points, Green chipped in with eight, and Carter Smith and Josh Benjamin tacked on three and two, respectively.
“I'm super, super proud of this group,” said Stratton. “When the season began, I knew we had a lot of work ahead of us and by the time the second half of the year came around, over the last seven games we've averaged like 61 points, only giving up like 53 points, playing tough teams, really tough teams sometimes. Not enough to win, but there's no moral victories in sports. It felt like a lot of times that we had really made some great progress and, to be playing a meaningful game here, in the 20th game of the season.
“The boys are really proud of themselves, so the parents were proud of themselves. We had a great turnout tonight in terms of fans. When we came up at halftime, you could hear them cheering for us, even though it felt like it was really getting away from us, but for the boys to play that meaningful game here today as our last one with a chance to get into playoffs, it's important.”
NV (7-13) had just eight players suited up and were minus the services of veterans Cooper Davis and Nate Hickley, both of whom missed the entire season due to injuries.
The Raiders, ranked 16th in Class C, were led by Anthony Peake, who notched a game-high 23 points. Clark-Cabezas had 14, Mason von Gordon added 13, and Parker and Weston Peake scored eight apiece. T-burg improved to 13-6 overall, each of its losses coming against state-ranked opponents.
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IN PHOTO 1: NV’s Carter Smith. ... IN TOP PHOTO: NV's Austin Green. ... PHOTOS BY TIM TAYLOR.
