Scotia-Glenville 72, Ogdensburg Free Academy 50
Set the tone.
As a player, as a coach, as a basketball league administrator, any role in hoops I play - I preach that. Pretty much every other coach does, too.
The Scotia-Glenville Tartans - now the defending Class A Federation champion Scotia-Glenville Tartans - did just that, using a zone defense shading to deny OFA standout Kinnon LaRose any breathing room on the catch. While OFA started cold, Scotia was shooting over 50%, took a double-digit lead 6 minutes into the game and never let it drop back to single digits against a state semifinalist in Class B last season.
Ogdensburg scored first on a Jack Manke jumper, which Scotty Stopera responded to a minute later with his only 3 points of the game. That 3 gave Scotia the lead for good, less than 2 minutes into the game.
Damn, I just took the suspense out of this article, didn't I?
Scotia started a little slowly on offense, relying on the 3 in the first few minutes which wasn't dropping. Once they stopped settling, everything started flowing. They held Ogdensburg scoreless for the last 4:31 of the 1st quarter while reeling off 11 points, 5 from Joe Cremo and 4 from Mike Palleschi, to forge a 16-4 lead after 1. The UAlbany commit split a pair of free throws with 1:58 left in the 1st to get that double-digit lead. The balance continued for Scotia in the 2nd, and Diamond Corker showed he was worth more than being on the Section 2 All-Name 1st Team. Corker scored 8 of his 10 points in the 2nd, including 5 straight directly after LaRose's first points to give Scotia their first 20 point lead of the night. LaRose, who has been offered by Division I Hartford (same school that Saratoga grad Noah Arciero is at), didn't get on the board until his three with 2:18 left in the first half made it 29-14. After the Corker trey made it a 20 point game, LaRose scored on back-to-back possessions, giving him all 7 of his points in the half in a 1:21 stretch. Joe Almond finished the half with a trey for Scotia, sending them in the locker room with a 39-18 edge - their largest of the half.
Ogdensburg started off the 2nd half with a bit more fire. A Seth Pinkerton three followed a Peyton Lalone basket to bring it to 16 and (maybe?) give them some momentum. So much for that. After an empty possession each way, Cremo lined up a three from 22 feet out, nailed it and got fouled. The 4 point play woke Scotia back up and got them going. Ogdensburg made one more interesting push in the 3rd, when a 7-2 run culminating in a Tristan Moore bomb made it 45-32 with 4:26 left in the 3rd. Scotia responded with a 13-2 run in 2:21 of game time (6 coming from Cremo) that stretched the lead to 24 late in the 3rd. LaRose did well on his own to duel Cremo & Co., but he certainly got going a little too late, and he could use some help - the way Cremo has Palleschi, Stopera, Almond, Corker, etc. OFA quickly knocked it down to 17 in the opening seconds of the 4th, thanks to a 7-0 run with 4 points coming from Kinnon, but Scotia responded as always. Cremo scored 7 points for the Tartans in a stretch of just over 2 minutes, and a Joe Almond bucket following that gave Scotia their largest lead of the night at 68-43 with 4:47 left.
You don't always get to see scholarship-level talent against scholarship-level talent, and we were able to see that tonight in Kinnon LaRose vs. Joe Cremo. Even better, Ogdensburg ditched the 3-2 zone and went man-to-man in the 2nd half. LaRose guarded Cremo. Watching that matchup in itself was worth the trip - really interesting battle. Scotia stayed in their zone the whole game, continuing to try and make Kinnon's life miserable. He certainly got the better of it once his first bucket fell, but he was entirely too relaxed deferring to teammates early. I also loved the intensity of the matchup - it felt more like a sectional semifinal than an early December inter-section battle. The house was packed and you could feel the buzz in the crowd. They knew they were getting a treat. The intensity spilled over into a couple mini-incidents when the game was in hand in the 2nd half, but that's part of the business between two teams used to success. I wasn't complaining.
LaRose led his team with 19 points, all of them coming in a stretch that was just over 14 minutes of action. Jack Manke, OFA's big man, added 12 points. Joe Cremo was the game's high scorer, finishing with 32 points for Scotia. Mike Palleschi added 15 points; Diamond Corker and Joe Almond finished with 10 apiece for the Tartans. Free throws and field goal percentage inside the arc were a solid difference tonight: OFA shot 4/10, compared to a 16/20 Scotia squad. Scotia was blistering inside the arc, getting layup after layup. They shot 19/29 on anything worth 2 points. Turnovers were basically even, OFA committing 11 turnovers compared to Scotia's 10, and OFA shot 6/20 from beyond the arc compared to 6/19 from Scotia.
The crowd, including the Dog Pound, came out in full force for this one and they got a treat. I know I enjoyed myself, and I'll be making a trip back to Scotia soon!
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