Basketball

Bear-ly victorious

VanLieu lifts Bears to waning-seconds win over gritty Manor Wildcats

By RICHARD A. ROSS

GRAHAMSVILLE, NY — Sometimes you know what’s coming, and though you plan what you’ll do when it occurs, you may fail to stop it anyway.

For Livingston Manor coach Charlie Hicks and his band of feisty Wildcats, one of those defining moments occurred with 10 seconds remaining in a tied 47-all game against Tri-Valley on December 16. Manor had just scored on a bucket by Mike Hendrickson to retie the game in a topsy-turvy fourth quarter.

During the course of that turbulent final frame, the Wildcats let their lead slip away by dint of poor decision-making and defensive lapses. That, along with some big Tri-Valley shots, most of which came from Dustin VanLieu, allowed the Bears to hang around.

The game had been tight all night with both teams missing far more shots than they had made and ample turnovers committed by both sides. But after being tied at 10 at the end of the first quarter, at 22 at the half and leading by five entering the fourth quarter, Manor needed to put the hammer down on the Bears. But as is often the case in basketball, a great player rose up to foil that intent.

VanLieu suddenly found the game he had been mostly missing all night. His flurry of points put his team in a position to win with help from Tim Yager, who had tied it up at 45-all with a timely three pointer, his third of the night, and Tim Martin’s go-ahead slash to the rim that gave the Bears a lead with 51 seconds remaining.

Manor responded when Mike Hendrickson went up strong.

The Wildcats needed a stop to force the game into overtime or perhaps get the final shot and leave with a momentous win, a healing tonic to soothe ills from having lost a winnable game down the stretch to Sullivan West the night before.

“You know what they’re going to do, right?” asked Hicks during a time out at 3:13 to go with his team up then by three. “They’re going to clear out and screen and Dustin will take it to the hole. What are we going to do? Slide over and take a charge.” His team listened and nodded.

But Manor’s defense didn’t come out to challenge Yager for the game-tying trey, or stop the slashing Martin. Now with 10 seconds remaining, Hicks reiterated the warning about VanLieu, but the talented senior, who is chasing history as he moves closer to Kyle Humphrey’s school record of 1317 points, drove, pulled up and delivered the dagger as defenders Ross Abbott and Shane Lewis looked up from the space they had given him.

With 3.1 seconds remaining, Hicks drew up the final desperation play: heave the inbounds pass the length of the floor to Troy Correa, who would fire the last shot. Correa’s potential game-winning three missed the mark and the Bears prevailed 49-47.

It had been quite a night.

VanLieu’s 13 points in the fourth quarter accounted for much of his nightly output of 22. VanLieu, who transferred back to Tri-Valley, is likely to break Humphreys’ record by season’s end.

Still, VanLieu has yet to find the stroke that has defined his career, marked by immense accuracy from three-point range. His deft shooting helped carry Tri-Valley to a Section Nine Class C title in 2006 and on into regionals where the Bears came up just one game shy of reaching the final four in Glens Falls.

Early on in this game, VanLieu had only two points in the first quarter and seven in the second. He was scoreless in the third quarter, during which time the Bears put up only seven points while Manor had scored 12.

Tri-Valley coach Brian Tingley had scouted and filmed Manor at Sullivan West the night before. One key aspect he noted was handling Hendrickson’s dribble penetration. Dan Killian drew this assignment as part of the Bears’ two-three zone and rotating help that doubled up Hendrickson down low. Limiting him to 13 points showed the effectiveness of this strategy. With big man Robert Favre not present for this game, Tingley’s altered rotation proved successful.

Tingley expected the Wildcats to deploy a zone and to press, something the Bears are very adept at handling. Perhaps Hicks knew that, or felt his athletic team could handle a man defense, something they were unable to execute against the Bulldogs.

Hicks tried to stay positive following the loss, but it was a challenge. “I feel like we choked in the last two games down the stretch,” he said. He credited Tri-Valley as being scrappy and extremely well-coached.

“They outplayed us in the final four minutes,” he noted, offering no excuses. The fact is his team was playing on back-to-back nights, and Tingley’s strategy of getting out and running fast breaks was designed to produce fatigue. “Even if we didn’t score on our breaks, we wanted to make them run back and tire them out,” Tingley noted following the win. Peter DeMilia’s entry into the game proved timely, as he immediately scored and converted on a free throw to cut a five-point lead to two at a key juncture in the hapless third quarter.

Hicks acknowledged that it was the little things that matter. “Whoever has the least amount of turnovers, gets the most rebounds and goes to the free throw line and shoots the best percentage is likely to win,” he professed, while always advocating strong pressure on defense.

Tri-Valley was four-for-seven from the stripe, while Manor was 10-for-14. The Bears turned it over 15 times and the Wildcats coughed it up 17.

But the real difference came in a couple of key plays. Having experienced success with kick outs from Hendrickson to Ross Abbott, who scored five points including one of his two three-pointers in the early going of the fourth quarter, the ‘Cats got away from their successful strategy in the heat of the final minutes.

In addition, a couple of mistakes prevented them from extending their lead, including a hurried shot and an unforced turnover that led to Yager’s game-tying three.

Hendrickson and Justin Miranda each had 13 for Livingston Manor (2-2). “Hopefully, these two games will catapult us to great success instead of the reverse,” said Hicks.

VanLieu led the Bears (4-2) with 22 points. Yager had 15 including a trio of threes.

Tri-Valley has no games scheduled until they encounter talented James I. O’Neill in the Raiders’ tournament on December 29-30.

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