Basketball

New identity

Ellenville edges Tri-Valley in season opener as both teams emerge from markedly different pasts

By RICHARD A. ROSS

GRAHAMSVILLE, NY — Crosscurrents of thoughts and emotions are in play as teams get set for the opening tip of their first basketball game. For the players on the floor and their fans looking on, that first vertical leap launches hopes that the season journey will lead to good things.

But lingering still is the resonance of last year’s campaign. For Tri-Valley, Section Nine’s most successful team in 2006-07, and its Coach of the Year Brian Tingley, that memory is a powerful one. The Bears’ 22-2 season took them scintillatingly close to basketball glory, falling just one game shy of the state final four at Glens Falls.

But nearly all of the key players from that remarkable run are gone now, requiring Tingley and his mix of remaining Bears and newcomers to emerge and establish their own identity and credibility.

Conversely for the Ellenville Blue Devils, the memory of last year’s winless season casts an entirely different kind of shadow. Relentless losses proved to be a wake up call. As coach Ryan Bonitz put it, the team “would either have to commit to playing year-round basketball or resign itself to another year of losing.”

The seven juniors on the floor at the end of last season vowed to reverse the trend. Fresh from off-season efforts in AAU and summer league, Class B Ellenville wasted no time in immediately surpassing last year’s win total with its 46-43 victory over the defending Class C champions.

With four of Tri-Valley’s five starters still playing football until a couple of weeks ago, Tingley realized that implementing the new things he foresees as requisites for success this year would have to be phased in. The Bears would have to get out of the gate by deploying a simpler plan of action.

Tri-Valley opened with a full-court man defense that was initially effective. But Ellenville senior Antoine Lewis, who was playing at the point, showed himself to be the major issue. By night’s end, he had tallied 24 points, including a trio of threes. Ellenville also evinced an early rebounding edge and Tri-Valley was unable to get into the flow of its offense except in a couple of spurts, the last of which was a 7-1 run at the end of the game that came a bit too late to reverse Ellenville’s widening lead in the fourth quarter.

Kevin Drown ran the point for Tri-Valley and showed his ability to make some deft passes, including a slicing bouncer to Brendan Musa that he converted to help Tri-Valley keep its early lead.

But the Bears were hampered by a spate of 13 turnovers in the first half. That total would burgeon to 24 by night’s end, something Tingley will seek to immediately rectify. Ellenville committed eight in the first half and 15 on the night, as both teams evinced the kind of ragged play common to early season efforts.

Tri-Valley’s turnover woes and Ellenville’s second-chance shots accounted for the Blue Devils’ 22-17 lead by halftime, which reversed a 10-7 edge by Tri-Valley at the end of the first quarter. Two early fouls by Bears’ post presence Bo Murphy consigned him to the bench for nearly a quarter and a half. Murphy’s absence removed a mismatch that the Bears had hoped to exploit.

Murphy still emerged as Tri-Valley’s leading scorer with 17 points, 15 of which came in the second half. To maximize Murphy’s value in the post, Tingley stressed the need to pass the ball more frequently before sending it down low.

“We’ll get there. We’ll be fine,” said Tingley after the game, as he pondered the week of practice before Tri-Valley’s next game, a home game against Livingston Manor on December 5.

Bruce Moore also picked up a couple of fouls, requiring Tingley to use his bench while rotating Sean Drown to the four spot to guard a bigger player.

At the outset of the second quarter, Ellenville got a pair of buckets from efficient passing between Lewis and senior Devon Croft. Using a 6-0 run, Ellenville pulled out to a 13-10 lead, but the Bears reasserted themselves with a bucket by Robert Favre and a drive to the rack by Sean Drown.

A put back by Marc Sassenscheid gave the Blue Devils a lead they would never relinquish, although Tri-Valley would subsequently tie the game twice in the third quarter. The first of Lewis threes came near the end of the second quarter. A basket by Tri-Valley’s Andrew Yager cut the Blue Devils’ lead to five at the break.

With Murphy back on the floor to start the third quarter and the Bears still in the zone defense they had shifted to later in the first half, Tri-Valley went to work to cut the lead to three. But another Lewis trey pushed it right back to six.

Murphy scored 11 points in the third quarter. He tied the game at 25-all and 28-all before Lewis drained his final three to spark a 7-0 run that led to a 37-30 Ellenville lead after three quarters.

A wide open Jack Gillette gave the Devils a bucket, but Murphy and Dave McDonald scored to keep the game within reach before Gillette canned a three to expand the lead to 11. The Bears’ full-court man defense limited Ellenville to only one point in the final three and a half minutes. McDonald had five points during that span, including a three near the end of the game, but it just wasn’t enough.

Tingley noted, “We really couldn’t run our offense the way we will be able to soon.” While preferring that his team had opened with a win, the coach felt the game was a valuable learning experience.

“No one is going to hand it to us. We’re going to have to work for it,” he said, echoing the phrase emblazoning the shirts his team wore during warm-ups that say, “Work hard…Let’s Do It.” Tingley and company hope that this year’s shirts are as prophetic as last year’s that accurately predicted, “The Team, The Year.”

The Bears were two-for-five from the line. Ellenville was 10-for-19.

Tri-Valley (0-1) sports players are in fine condition, an asset to be mined as the young season moves on apace. Ellenville (1-0) hosted Roscoe for a scrimmage on November 30 and was scheduled to host Livingston Manor on December 3.