Troy rally comes up short at Shen
CLIFTON PARK, N.Y. » The Shenendehowa boys varsity basketball team was looking to avoid another last second victory in Tuesday’s home opener against Troy High and jumped out to as much as a 20-point lead to open the third quarter.
The Plainsmen then saw that lead evaporate and the Flying Horses rally back, take the lead and rely on Chris Hulbert’s block of Nazaire Merritt’s last second shot to escape with a 57-56 win.
“The first half we played really well, we really played as a team, we ran our offense, everyone knew where they were going, everyone knew their roles and we were playing unselfish basketball, finding the open guy, running the offense and having our offense dictate what we do and letting the easy buckets come to us and getting the open shots,” Shenendehowa’s Abbas Merchant said. “We just lost ourselves in the third quarter. We came out dead, we had no energy and we lost ourselves as a team. We tried to do too much individually and after we fell short we tried to force everything to fall and started letting them dictate our offense into their zone, letting their defense man dictate the shots we got.”
The Flying Horses dictated the second half tempo, pushing the ball up the court, punishing the Plainsmen after every missed basket as part of a 12-0 run that eventually gave Troy a 50-49 lead on Latyce Faison’s lay-up and a three-point lead off a Shen turnover on Joe Casale’s lay-up with 5:42 left in the contest.
The Flying Horses stretched the lead to five points with 4:51 left on Alonzo Alexander’s bucket from underneath the basket, 54-49.
“We just stopped moving the ball, we stopped making the extra pass, defensively we got too spread out and they did a good job, credit to them,” Shenendehowa Coach Tony Dzikas said. “They kept playing and we thought it was over.”
Merchant scored a game-high 21 points for the Plainsmen with Chris Hulbert, Greg Monroe and T.J. San-
gare each adding nine.
Troy High was led by Alonzo Alexander’s 19 points, including five threepoint buckets, providing the long distance daggers that dogged the Plainsmen throughout the night, courtesy of the Flying Horses offense.
“When you let teams get right into the middle of your zone and kick the ball out, they’re just different shots,” Dzikas said. “Those insideout threes are just different, they’re easier to make, you see them going in as soon as they get those passes you’re like ‘that’s going in.’”
Shenendehowa’s Jake Dzikas hit a three-pointer from the college line with 4:35 left and Merchant tied the contest at 54 apiece with his bucket under the basket with 3:11 left.
Greg Monroe put the Plainsmen ahead hitting the front end of a two-shot foul before Casale’s put back pushed Troy ahead, 56-55 with 2:11 left. Abbas pulled Shenendehowa ahead with his jumper with 1:54 left, but the contest was far from over.
Shen’s James Altenburger blocked a Faison shot before the Plainsmen had to burn a second consecutive time out when it couldn’t inbound the ball with 1:13 left.
Shenendehowa had two more shot attempts, a jumper and a missed put back under the basket that gave Troy new life with 30 seconds left.
The Flying Horses were unable to get a shot off and Coach Greg Davis called a timeout with four seconds left to set up the final shot where Hulbert was able to get a hand on Merritt’s attempt from the left corner.
The Troy High coaching staff had no comment for the Troy Record after the game, but did speak to another publication. The staff is prohibited from speaking with the Troy Record as directed by the school administration.
Both teams will return their respective gymnasiums tomorrow looking to improve prior to their next Suburban Council tilt. Shenendehowa will travel to take on Albany High Friday and Troy will host Shaker 7 p.m.
“They’re a good group of kids, we’ll come to practice tomorrow, they’ll understand the last two (quarters) were unacceptable and hopefully they’ll learn from it otherwise they’ll learn a lesson going into Albany because Albany will take it to them too,” Dzikas said.