HP Varsity faced Marcellus Friday Feb 21 at Marcellus.
HP played its best defense and the game was close throughout; ending each quarter within one point of another. The scales were tipped in the fourth quarter as players fouled out and Marcellus exploited their height advantage to capture several offense rebounds / put-backs. The last few minutes dissolved into a free throw contest and Marcellus stretched their 4 point lead to 6 points at the closing buzzer.
The HP Varsity Basketball Team finished 1st in their league with a record of 11-9 and besting the four other teams: Clinton, Sherburne-Earlville, Canastota, and Adirondack. As the 12 seed in the 25 team Center State Conference they end up facing #5 ranked Marcellus (14-6) in the sectionals. Marcellus previously trounced HP by 37 during the regular season.
Team Record
1 Lowville 18-1
2 Solvay 16-4
3 General Brown 16-4
4 V.V.S. 14-6
5 Marcellus 14-6
6 Clinton 14-6
7 Skaneateles 13-7
8 Cazenovia 12-8
9 Jordan-Elbridge 12-8
10 Westhill 12-8
11 Central Valley Academy 11-9
12 Holland Patent 11-9
13 Institute of Technology 10-10
14 Mt. Markham 11-8
15 Camden 9-10
16 Homer 8-10
17 Mexico 8-12
18 Oneida 7-13
19 Hannibal 7-12
20 Chittenango 6-14
21 Canastota 6-13
22 South Jefferson 4-15
23 Adirondack 5-15
24 APW 4-16
25 Phoenix 2-18
This weekend was the culmination of Eric’s 2019 AAU season as his Mohawk Valley Elite team competed in the Hoops Summit held in Watertown, NY. The team came away with 2 wins and 2 losses. I am particularly proud of Eric working to come back from ankle surgery and regain his game. Eric didn’t score much, but played stout defense against larger post players and pulled down double digit rebounds in the last game.
Eric’s MVE team played over the weekend beating their D-Squad opponent; losing to the Syracuse Nets and losing in overtime to Cap City. Eric played sparingly, often alternating defense / offense with Dylan.
After 8 months, 66 physical therapy appointments and several momentum swings Eric finally got to play basketball for his Mohawk Valley Elite AAU team. Their 1st 2019 tournament was held in Watertown, NY. They had a full team (10 players)and he is struggling with regaining his conditioning, but it was a major accomplishment to get to this point.
The HP Travel Team opened with a game vs VVS. HP lost to VVS 28-36. Eric played two quarters . He did a good job of playing zone defense and setting ball screens.
Eric typically favors playing the left side of the lane away from the ball.
Saturday morning HP3 House Team played HP2. they had a 10 point lead in the 4th quarter but lost the game during the press that HP2 employed the last two minutes. There was some confusion. In the picture above Kathryn captured the moment that Eric came up to give a ball screen for his point guard, Jack. Jack threw a bounce pass into Eric’s ankles. Below Eric moves to set a screen on Luke’s defender.
Eric scored 8 points by hitting 4 straight jump shots from his “sweet spot” on the left side of the lane.
HP Travel Team beat an overwhelmed Notre Dame team 38-23 on Sunday afternoon. Eric was still feeling the glow from his previous day’s performance and took a couple of shots from outside his range, but otherwise played well; scoring once, boxing out well and playing the middle of the 2-3 zone and communicating with his teammates.
This weekend Kathryn went on a Finger Lakes wine tasting/procurement with Cindy, Bonnie and Linda. They left on Friday and returned late Sunday afternoon. I worked a partial schedule on Friday so I was home when Eric got off the school bus. Friday night Eric and I went to Best Buy and researched the XBox 360 gaming system. Saturday Eric had DeVante over to the house to play (11am-4pm). I pulled down two dead, hung up elm trees from near the old silo site. I believe that will be the last of our firewood cutting for the year. I pruned the grapes.
Saturday night was very windy. We got ~3″ of snow and the temperatures dropped into the 20s.
Eric, is playing basketball on a 5th grade CNY Travel Team. Sunday afternoon Holland Patent had a scrimmage vs. the Frankfort 5-6th grade CNY team. It was a scrimmage so they played 6 quarters, 10 minutes running time and reset the score board after every quarter. Eric played as a post player for 3 quarters as part of the B team. Frankfort dominated all but the 4th (B Team) quarter when they played to a 4-4 tie. There was a little guard, wearing jersey #2 with SPINA on the back. We estimate that if Frankfort scored 30 points, then #2 had 20 of them. The kid was very good. Quick, with excellent ball skills with both hands, nice spin moves.
Monday morning we saw a nice sun dog as the sun arose through a light snow.
HP Gold, the 3rd and 4th grade basketball team, finished their season with a successful playoff run in John Dellacontrada League. HP Gold finished their regular season as the 2nd seed in the thirteen team league. Round 1 featured HP Gold vs. Oriskany – a team we have already played in two scrimmages and one league game. While they have greatly improved most of Oriskany’s roster consists of 3rd graders and 1st time basketball players. HP Gold played tough defense and won 28 – 10. Eric had 4 steals, a couple of rebounds, and 6 points. Three steals came from the same situation with Oriskany running the same play to the right side and Eric anticipating the pass. Unfortunately he missed all four lay-ups off the steals…..
Round 2 featured HP Gold vs. HP Purple at 10:15 Sunday morning. It was a closely competed game with HP Gold winning 24-22.
The Championship Game pitted Rome White (#1 Seed) vs. HP Gold. HP Gold gained an early lead by playing excellent defense and minimizing turn-overs. Scoring was distributed with Caleb, Dan, Sawyer, Eric, Trevor, Luke and DeVante all scoring at least 4 points apiece. Michael had a number of rebound put-backs and Jack had a couple of steals and scores with both boys scoring 6-8 points.
Below Eric and the team celebrate the end of the game!
The boys sign the game ball for Coach Matt.
HP Gold: Row 1 Jack, Luke and Caleb. Row 2 Eric, Trevor, Dan, Mike, Sawyer and DeVante. Back row: Coaches Matt, Ryan and Jim
What a great bunch of kids and it was a lot of fun to participate in coaching these boys this year. The improvement from November was remarkable for all the players. It was nice to have a final game where everyone contributed so much.
On April 21st the boys were honored along with 6 other youth sports teams at the Rome Sports Hall of Fame. Below Eric receives a certificate from Matt as Stan Evans reads off the roster.
Saturday Eric had three basketball games. A position round game matching #1 Oneida vs. #2 HP Gold team in the Rome league. The team was down 11-1 and came back to tie the game, ultimately losing by 2 points.
In the afternoon they played in a tournament, losing the 1st game versus JCCC by 3 points. Again the kids got down early 13-5 in the 1st half, 15-7 in the early 2nd half, finally getting to 18-15. They lost the 2nd game to Frankfort by lots and lots of points. Only one more week of basketball left. Whew!
Frankfort had a couple of quick players who were very committed to getting to the rim and where capable of making little bounce passes to the post players if they were denied by a switching defensive player. Below Eric plays defense, sets a pick for Michael, calls for the ball, advances the ball in a crowd, watches the opening tip and holds his form on his jump shot.
In their 3rd game of the season HP Gold faced Bellamy Gray. Eric was excited because Jennifer and Mike were coming to see his game. He played well, running hard, good defense, scored 4 points and he got a lot of rebounds. He won Matt’s Saranac Root Beet Award for the most rebounds – although I am sure Michael and Trevor were very close in total rebounds as well.
