Barkley Showcase: Stowe, State-ranked Tigers catch 1st half fire to roll past Bolivar-Richburg with 81-48 victory

Written By Chris Brooks

ALFRED — When the New York State Rankings were released to the public early Tuesday afternoon, the Avoca Tigers kept climbing the ranks in Class D. Entering the 6th Annual Dan Barkley Showcase at Alfred State College with an 11-1 record, they stand tall as the highest ranking boys basketball team across both Allegany and Steuben counties in the fifth spot.

With Bolivar-Richburg up next on the docket, Avoca went straight to work on continuing to prove their legitimacy straight out of the gates, as they scored their biggest quarter of the game in the first eight minutes of play to establish a double-digit lead, never giving it up on their way to victory with an 81-48 win over the Wolverines to take game two of action inside the Orvis Activities Center, Saturday evening.

“The interesting part about all of this is, they run the same exact offense that we run. The problem is, they run it much better than we do,” said Wolverines coach Jeff Margeson. “There was a lot of passing and cutting, flashing to the ball and trying to get it to their bigs when they can. It’s excellent for those guys to see this kind of basketball. We went into this game saying that Avoca will be the best team we’ll see all season. We won’t see something like this in our C3 bracket.”

With both teams finding the basket on their very first possession of the game, the balance of power began to shift toward the favor of Avoca, as they created an opening within the Wolverines (4-10) defense to create an early six-point lead. But just a matter of minutes later, it grew exponentially, as the Tigers created multiple turnovers against their opposition, some of them coming before Bolivar-Richburg was able to reach midcourt with their transition.

That was a credit to the Tigers defense, according to Margeson.

“You could tell they really work on their transition game a lot. They fill in the lanes quite nicely when they got a steal from us,” he said. “They sniff the ball out so well, it’s almost like they know where the ball is going before we pass it. A lot of it has to do with some of our youth, and we didn’t match up against their pace. But they saw it, and that’s the important part about why the newer kids are on the varsity level.”

When it was all said and done, Avoca had built a 24-11 lead on Bolivar-Richburg after the opening quarter, and later an even bigger 43-20 advantage going into the half with a 19-9 second quarter run in the Tigers back pocket. Eventual Player of the Game, Devin Stowe was a big cog in the offense’s machine, as he netted 18 of his game-high 29 points in the first 16 minutes.

If there was a positive to take away from their return to the Barkley Showcase, the Wolverines put forth their strongest quarter of the night, netting 20 points to deadlock with the Avoca offense. Landon Danaher headed the effort with 10 of his team-leading 22 points being scored within the stanza. For Margeson, he issued a challenge at halftime to get his team motivated for a strong finish.

“I challenged them at halftime to not turn the off switch on, to not give up and hang their heads. I wanted them to focus on going back to having fun playing basketball,” the Wolverines coach said. “They did everything right in that fourth quarter. They passed, cut, communicated. They played basketball the way it was meant to be played, but the intimidation factor was there in the first half, and a lot of teams will experience that against a team like Avoca, and rightfully so.”

Following Danaher in the Wolverines scorebook was Wyatt Karnuth, who recorded nine points. Camdyn MacDonell chipped in with eight points inside. Riley Danaher collected seven points, while Isaac Scott had the remaining two points on a basket inside the arc.

Bolivar-Richburg will now take a few days off before returning to action back on the road Wednesday night, as they now get set to make a trip into the Lion’s Den to face Wellsville for a 7:30 p.m. tip-off.

“We’re going to take a look at Juice (Max Jusianiec), and see what we can do to slow him down,” Margeson said. “I told the guys that the next couple of days, we have to come up with a game plan. The whole point is to try and limit the damage from him, and eliminate the supporting cast behind him. The kids are looking forward to it, we just have to get back out there and have fun. We may have lost seven games in a row, but we can’t associate ourselves with that. I’m proud of the work they keep putting in, and they keep digging. That’s all I can ask of them at this point.”

Bolivar-Richburg    11   9  8 20 – 48

Avoca                      24 19 18 20 – 81 

BOLIVAR-RICHBURG: Riley Danaher 3 0-3 7, Landon Danaher 6 10-12 22, Wyatt Karnuth 3 1-2 9, Isaac Scott 1 0-0 2, Camdyn MacDonell 4 0-0 8. Totals: 17 11-17 48.
AVOCA: Brady Brandow 2 0-0 4, Jordan Slayton 0 1-2 1, Devin Stowe 12 3-7 29, Pacey Hopkins 5 0-0 10, Tristian Stark 5 0-1 10, Thomas Derick 1 0-0 2, Jonathan Jensen 8 0-1 19, Michael Hoad 2 0-0 4, DeJay Hammond 1 0-1 2. Totals: 36 4-12 81.
3-point goals: B-R 3 (Karnuth 2, R. Danaher), Avoca 5 (Jensen 3, Stowe 2).
Total Fouls: B-R 15, Avoca 12. Fouled out: None.

Chris Brooks
Previous

Barkley Showcase: Draper provides big 4th quarter spark to help Jasper-Troupsburg edge out Tigers with 50-45 triumph
Next

Barkley Showcase: Lady Eagles form huge 2nd quarter run to hand Canisteo-Greenwood 1st loss of season in 52-34 triumph