1/8 Most Valuable Thoughts: Little Falls/West Canada Valley Boys Hoops

Little Falls 79, West Canada Valley 68

Standing room only.

That’s the situation we had in Newport Wednesday night. Great atmosphere, great game. Even though it was on WCV’s home court, Little Falls – especially the students – traveled well enough to make it seem like a neutral site game. The visiting Mounties looked more ready for the moment early, and they carried that momentum all the way to the finish to pick up a huge league W over WCV in a game that had Twitter beef going for months.

The game started off slow, with both teams shaking out the jitters in the first few minutes. Rahmere Greene had the game’s first points nearly 2 minutes in for LF. Bobby Davenport & Jordan Yaworski opened up the WCV scoring over the next minute and a half to give WCV the lead at 4-2. However, Little Falls then settled in, going on a 7-0 run while holding the Indians scoreless for 3 minutes. Another Greene bucket in that run put them up 5-4 – a lead they’d never relinquish. After Ryan Moody broke that 7-0 run, LF scored the next 5, extending the run to 12-2 and pushing their lead to 8. They led by 6, 16-10, after 1 quarter. There were 12 combined turnovers in the first 8 minutes – 7 from WCV – and the Mounties forced the Indians into shooting 33% from the field, letting them hold the lead despite shooting 35% from the field themselves. The 2^nd quarter was a free throw fiesta. 9 combined field goals, 27 combined free throw attempts. With the Little Falls lead trimmed to 4 after a Jordan Yaworski trey, the Mounties went a 7-0 run capped by a Sean Ward bomb to take their first double-digit lead at 31-20 with 4:04 left in the 2^nd. After the teams traded a pair of free throws, WCV went on a 9-1 run to cut their deficit to 3. Yaworski had a quarter that was a little reminiscent of the 4^th quarter he had just a week & a half ago against New York Mills, and he had 5 of the 9 in that run. Little Falls scored the last 4 of the quarter to bump the lead back to 7 at half, one more than the 6 point lead after 1, thus negating the 13 point 2^nd quarter performance from Skip. He had 17 at the half for WCV; Brian Ewanyk led Little Falls with 12.

The number of the 2^nd half was 6. The Indians cut the lead to 6 a total of 6 times in the 2^nd half, but never got closer. It went back and forth early in the 3^rd, with LF pushing the lead back up to 11 twice, just to have WCV knock it back to single digits. A Davenport trey brought it back to 6 for the first time with 5:32 left in the 3^rd – Little Falls responded by going on a 9-2 run to extend to its then-largest lead at 55-42. WCV then  scored 7 of the final 9 third quarter points, the first 4 from Yaworski, to cut the deficit back to 8 after 3 at 57-49. More free throws galore in that quarter – 15 combined, with Little Falls shooting 8/8. The Mounties turned it over 5 times in the 3^rd, but again forced WCV into 30% shooting to combat that. WCV started off the 4^th quarter scratching & clawing its way back, knocking the deficit to 6 on 4 different occasions, the latest being on a Yaworski bucket with 3:50 to go, but Little Falls always had an answer. Most of those answers involved freshman Todd Hubbell. He had 6 points & 2 dimes in the first 5 minutes of the 4^th for Little Falls to keep the cushion. The deciding run started with a Rahmere Greene layup off a Hubbell feed to bump the lead back to 8. The next 2 times down the court resulted in buckets by Hubbell & Brian Ewanyk, stretching the lead to 12 with 2:11 to go. Davenport hit another three to cut it to 10, but a layup by Greene and a steal from him on the ensuing WCV possession sealed the Indians’ fate. Two Theo Wind free throws gave Little Falls its largest lead of the night with 1:06 remaining at 76-62. Alex Williams hit a pair of threes for WCV to quickly knock it back to single digits one last time, but 2 more Wind free throws gave us the double-digit difference for the final score.

#ByTheNumbers – For Little Falls, balance is the name of the game. They had 4 players finish in double figures, and 2 more had 8 on the night. Brian Ewanyk led them with 18 points, and he was on triple-double watch for a while as well. He had 12 of those in the 1^st half, along with 6 boards & 5 dimes in the opening stanzas. He finished with 10 rebounds & 6 dimes. Rahmere Greene, despite sitting out all but 5 minutes of the 1^st half with 2 fouls, had 16 points, 5 boards, and 5 steals. Mitchell Baumeister had 9 of his 14 points from the free throw line, and Todd Hubbell had 6 of his 11 in the 4^th. Theo Wind shot 6/6 from the free throw line and added 8, and Sean Ward hit a pair of 2^nd quarter treys on the way to 8 off the bench. Jordan Yaworski slowed up a little for WCV in the 2^nd half, but still finished with 25 on the night, including 9/11 from the stripe. He had 17 in the first half – 13 in the 2^nd quarter. Bobby Davenport, despite having a rough shooting night, got it going a bit in the 4^th and added 16 for the Indians along with 7 rebounds. Alex Williams also finished in double digits for WCV – 6 of his 12 came in the last minute. This was a game where most team statistics were identical (or just about). Rebounding was only a +1 in favor of WCV at 35-34. Both teams turned the ball over 18 times on the night. Although Little Falls shot at a much higher percentage (48% for the Mounties, closer to 38% for WCV), they each made 24 field goals on the night, 6 of them threes. However, there was one large looming difference… check the stat of the night below.

Neat-o Stat of the Night – Free throws. It’s all about free throws. They say free throws determine games – I’ve always said that’s not always true. I’d prefer to have the better team. Being better normally determines games. However, for the lovers of the free throws determine games saying, look no further. Little Falls won by 11. They had an 11 point advantage at the free throw line. They got to the line and shot over 70% (25/35), including 18/21 shooting in the middle quarters.