STREAKS ALIVE!
Saratoga boys basketball wins fifth straight contest
LATHAM, N.Y. » It’s not even close to baseball season, but with a backdrop of two Section II standouts and former major leaguers having their high school jersey numbers retired at Shaker High School Thursday night, Saratoga Springs boys basketball Coach Matt Usher channeled a bit of Bull Durham fictional catcher Crash Davis.
There was a game plan for his Blue Streaks taking part in their second double-header on the road in eight days, this time at Shaker High School and just as the motion picture catcher wasn’t sure where the pitch was going to sail, and Usher wasn’t entirely sure where the scoring was coming from Thursday night.
It only took a pair of threepointers off the hand of Nick Chudy and the encourage to keep on firing to see the Blue Streaks win their fifth straight game, dismissing Shaker, 57-45, Thursday night.
“It’s a different guy every night for us,” Matt Usher said. “It’s something that I’m not used to and still trying to get comfortable with because it makes it kind of unpredictable and you go in and you don’t know who it’s going to be on any given night, but it makes it tough to prepare for on the defensive side of it for other teams.”
The boys varsity squad had a late start as the Saratoga girls varsity squad was locked into a two overtime battle to kick off the night, falling to the Bison, 7875, before giving way to the floor and gymnasium walls as Shaker alums Tommy Kahnle and Jeff Hoffman had their respective No. 23 jersey’s retired before the boys varsity side of the basketball twin bill.
Chudy made it worth the wait, dropping in 27 points, including six three-pointers on the night.
“In these last two games I got
my shot going early on too, but this game I tried to continue it out with the game,” Nick Chudy said. “The last game I had three, threes in the first quarter and then I didn’t shoot anymore. Coming into the game today my mindset was just keep shooting and keep playing.”
The Blue Streaks jumped out to an early nine-point lead and didn’t look back, giving Chudy an opportunity to find his shot with Usher giving direction to slow down the pace and run the Saratoga offense.
“They were going down and Nick was feeling it, so it was nice to see him getting hot and even though we had some other guys who didn’t score like were used to them scoring, other guys stepped up,” Usher said.
Not to be lost in the rainbow of Chudy’s threepointers was the Blue Streaks holding Shaker to under 50 points.
“They really bought into the game plan and executed it well. If we keep working on that side of the ball I think good things are going to happen for us,” Usher said, a key to success in the Suburban Council. The league is very tough, there is no night off, even the teams that might not be at the top are very dangerous and can knock anyone off on a given night.
“We just need to continue to improve and be the team that brings our best effort every night and we talked about the team that shows up with their best every night might be the team that ends up on the top of the league at the end of the year.”
Matthew Larkin followed Chudy with 11 points in the book, while typical hot-handed scorers A.J. Lawton and Brian Hart were limited to two points each.
“That’s what’s good about our team, sometimes it’s me, other times its A.J.,” Chudy said. “We’re really deep which is really good to have, any night it could be me scoring or A.J. scoring which is really good to have.”
The Blue Streaks are on a five-game winning run, including a pair of road doubleheader wins.
“I like our group right now and win or lose, we build momentum from,” Chudy said. “We’re pushing each other harder and harder to not lose again. Winning, we want to keep that streak going so we’re pushing each other.”