’Burgh pulls away from BHBL in Class A
LOUDONVILLE — The first half of the opening Section II Class A boys’ basketball quarterfinal game Sunday at Siena College was entertaining, a 16-minute block that featured four ties and 12 lead changes.
Lansingburgh, seeded fourth in the bracket, didn’t allow that to continue against No. 5 Burnt Hills-ballston Lake.
After two more lead changes in the opening minute of the second half, the Knights took off on a 9-0 run and controlled the Spartans the rest of the way en route to a 68-57 victory.
Lansingburgh (17-4) will play top-seeded Amsterdam, a 60-45 winner over Columbia, in the semifinals at 6:30 p.m. Wednesday at Cool Insuring Arena in Glens Falls.
“Last year, we lost to Mekeel (Christian Academy, 60-34) — it wasn’t even close — in the second round,” said Knights senior guard Wesley Mcintyre, who led all scorers with 21 points. “Coming here and getting a dub, on to the Civic Center. I’ve never played there. I’m excited.”
The key for Lansingburgh, which drew a firstround bye and hadn’t played in 13 days, was putting the clamps on Burnt Hills senior guard Luke Haluska, who made four 3s and totaled 13 points in the first half.
The Knights employed a box-and-one defense on Haluska, who did not score after halftime.
“We’ve incorporated it many times this year,” Lansingburgh coach Eric Loudis said, “and it took their best player out of the game for the second half.”
“He had almost half their points,” Mcintyre said. “At first our game plan was to stop 22 (Ben Kline), but he wasn’t doing much and 3 (Haluska) was heating up, so we had to stop him.”
“He bailed us out with a lot of tough shots early,” Spartans coach Kevin Himmelwright said of Haluska. “We had some other guys that didn’t have their best games offensively, and credit to Lansingburgh. They had a great game plan. They have good athletes that locked our guys down. We couldn’t get the ball down low like we wanted to very often.”
Lansingburgh’s athleticism led to some Burnt Hills turnovers and enabled the Knights to make it more of a full-court game. James Oliver (12 points) gave Lansingburgh the lead for good with a layup. Isiah Allison (17 point) followed with a 3-pointer, and Mcintyre scored off consecutive fast breaks to make it 35-27.
The Spartans (10-12) never got closer than six after that.
“We wanted to pick up the tempo a little,” Loudis said. “In the first half, we were on an adrenaline rush. We haven’t played in a while, so they were amped up. In the second half they settled down. They got out and running, and they did a lot of good things.”
The Knights finished things off at the foul line, making 15-of-20 free throws in a 21-point fourth quarter.
Burnt Hills, which beat Scotia 57-29 in the opening round, played Lansingburgh even in the final eight minutes, but it was a 23-11 Knights advantage in the third quarter that made the difference.
“We’ve come a long way,” Himmelwright said. “The boys are upset. We had bigger goals on the horizon. We wanted to get up to Glens Falls, and then it’s anybody’s game up in Glens Falls. We’ll see how Lansingburgh can do moving forward, but we wanted that game. The boys are heartbroken about it.”