1/7 Most Valuable Thoughts: Clinton/Holland Patent Boys Hoops

Holland Patent 68, Clinton 52

Another trip to Holland Patent.

3^rd of the season for me – this one certainly the most sane game of the three, but it didn’t go drama-free. The Golden Knights withstood some 2^nd half adversity and a strong performance by Clinton’s best player to take home a much needed win.

Here, I’ll take some drama away for you. The game’s first bucket was a Ryan Halpin trey 48 seconds in, giving Holland Patent a 3-0 lead: a lead Clinton would never get. After the teams traded buckets throughout most of the 1^st quarter, the Golden Knights went on a 6-0 spurt led by 2 Logan Reinold buckets to take a 13-6 lead. They forced 5 Clinton turnovers in the 1^st, leading to 3 fast-break layups. Neither team was particularly lighting it up, with the squads combining to shoot 33% in the opening quarter, but HP held a 15-10 lead after 8 minutes. Andrew Taft scored the first bucket of the 2^nd quarter for Clinton, but HP went on a 7-1 run following to extend their lead to 9 at 22-13. Stephen McGahey finished the run with a 3 point play, followed by a drive & dime to Matt Harter, who got dimed over and over and over again on this night. Taft kept Clinton in the game offensively through most of the 2^nd, scoring all of their points in that quarter until Malaquias Canery had a steal & layup at the 2:35 mark. Led by the strong 2^nd quarter from Taft, Clinton inched a little closer, cutting it to 6 at half. He led the Warriors with 12 at the break, 10 of them in the 2^nd. Logan Reinold had 14 first half points for the leaders.

The 2^nd half started with a Matt Harter bucket, stretching HP’s lead to 8. However, Clinton scored the next 8 while forcing their opponents to miss 6 straight shots, holding them scoreless for a 3:29 stretch. Malaquias Canery connected 3 straight times, and Andrew Taft split a pair of free throws twice to give us our first and only tie at 34 with 4:07 left in the 3^rd. Harter scored on the ensuing possession for Holland Patent, and they never let go of the lead again. A Reinold layup followed the Harter one, and after Clinton cut it back to two after Andrew Hobika scored at the 2:43 mark, Holland Patent went off. They held Clinton scoreless for the rest of the 3^rd while scoring 11 themselves. Reinold had the first 5, and Harter had the last 6 off of 3 layups in the last 57 seconds. Two of them came thanks to McGahey dimes, one of them signed, sealed, and delivered from Reinold. Clinton froze up in those last 3 minutes, turning it over 4 straight times at one point. They had 7 turnovers in the quarter, and Holland Patent had its largest lead of the game at 13 after 3. It was never closer than that in the 4^th. Matt Hughes & Matt Harter had buckets to start the 4^th to bump the lead up to 17. Even though HP was in control, it never grew past 18, thanks in whole to Canery. He’s the guy that’s done it for Clinton the last 3 years, and we saw why. He got going in the last 6 minutes, scoring 15 of Clinton’s 16 4^th quarter points. They couldn’t stop HP though, who shot 7/11 (63.6%) in the 4^th quarter. They actually shot worse from the line in the 4^th (5/11) than from the field – probably because most of their buckets were layups. Holland Patent’s largest lead was 18, which they secured twice, the last time being after a showtime finish by the lefty Reinold, his last of 24 points on the night which made it 60-42 with 2:49 left and capped a 7-2 spurt.

#ByTheNumbers - Logan Reinold had easily his best game of the 3 HP ones I’ve been to, leading the winners with 24 points and being the catalyst of every major run. Matt Harter had what I can only assume is a career high with 22 points. He made a living finishing around the rim off dishes from his guards and 2^nd chance opportunities. On Clinton’s end, 2 players scored over 80% of their points. Malaquias Canery had over half of them, putting through 27 of his team’s 52 on the night. 21 of those 27 came after intermission, 15 in the 4^th quarter. Big man Andrew Taft had a strong 2^nd quarter, scoring 10 of his 15 in that stanza. The rest of the team could only muster 10 points on the night. Holland Patent recovered from a chilly 1^st quarter to shoot almost 50% from the field at 27/58. Clinton, however, shot under 35% at 21/61, and they turned the ball over 19 times to Holland Patent’s 11.

Neat-o Stat of the Night: This game was not 3-ball friendly. The teams combined to hit the fewest amount of threes in a game that I’ve had at a boys game this season, with just 2 threes each way. Compare the 4 to the average of 10-11 that I see.