BOYS BASKETBALL: Cats top 'Hawks; Griffin reaches milestone

The game was close throughout, with Hudson leading 21-18 and 37-35 at the end of the first quarters. Catskill seized the lead, 55-54, by the end of the third stanza, then put the game away with a 22-13 scoring advantage in the final quarter.

Griffin was outstanding in defeat. Needing 15 points to reach the 1,000-career point milestone, he achieved that with 2:32 remaining in the first half and finished with 29 points. He becomes the first Hudson player to reach 1,000 points in his career since current Hudson junior varsity coach Isiah Heard accomplished the feat 18 years earlier.

“Dayquan had a great night tonight and it’s fitting he got his 1,000 point against our rival in an atmosphere like we had tonight,” Hudson coach Shawn Briscoe said. “Couldn’t have asked for a better situation.

“Would have liked to been able to get the win for him, but he’s had a trememndous career. It’s not an easy achievement and to have Isiah (Heard) here as our last 1,000th-point scorer to kind of pass that baton. And there’s more to come.”

Not to be outdone, Griffin’s former teammate at Hudson, Lavon Fernandez demonstrated why he is one of the top players in Section II with a 39-point performance.

“Beginning of the game it was close and I was scared in the lockerroom because I didn’t want to go out like that, but it was a good win,” Fernandez said. “We started locking them on defense and started denying Dayquan the ball and we just finished great.”

Fernandez said no matter what defense Hudson threw at him, he was ready.

“I’ve worked for this my whole life so I’m not going to just let a box and one take me out of the game. I just wanted to win so bad that I did whatever it had to take to win. I know there’s always a weakness to every defense and it’s easy to break.”

Catskill coach Doug Lampman was impressed with Fernandez’s performance.

“Lavon is a special player,” Lampman said. “Lavon can get everyone involved by dumping it inside and he can also take over on his own. It’s nice to have such a diverse player like him because he has such a layered game and it certainly plays to our advantage.”

Briscoe, while disappointed with the loss, couldn’t have been prouder of his team’s effort.

“This definitely hurts, but these guys came in and played hard and we were right there,” Briscoe said. “We kind of let it slip a little bit in the fourth quarter and as much as I’d like to take it was a moral victory, they don’t mean anything.

“I like how we’ve played moving forward at the end of the season and this shows that we can obviously play with anybody. This is a top tea in the section and as much as we had to endure the loss of a few guys we’re right where we want to be. We just reloaded. That’s the way I like to look at it and we’re going to give it a run here at the end of the year and hopefuly we can continue what we did tonight moving forward to sectionals.”

Lampman was pleased with his team’s effort against its archrival, but feels there is still work to do.

“It was a nice high school basketball game, it always is over here,” Lampman said. “It’s nice to have a close game to see how the guys are going to respond and I thought they responded very well. We took the shots we needed to take down the stretch and started to open things up.

“Defensively is where we have to continue to grow and it showed tonight. There were some uncontested three’s that they were knocking down and our post defense is something that we have to keep addressing.”

The win capped off a successful weekend for the Cats (11-0, 13-1), but Lampman felt the Cats’ slow start was due in part to Saturday’s game against defending Vermont state champion Mt. St. Joseph’s Academy.

“I think that played into that first half,” Lampman said. “The guys were hoping to just coast by and Hudson had other things in mind. These guys lefttheir guts on that court up there at the Washington Avenue Armory and it was a game they needed to win and show Albany that we are something special so they really attacked that game and they thought about Hudson a little bit when they woke up this morning.

“But Hudson was ready to play and it showed. But what’s nice is I have a deep bench, I’ve got guys like Ronnelle Lowe-Scott that are going to step up, I got guys like Kellen Gibbs that are going to step up, I got guys like Logan Scott, who layed a little bit on Saturday and was able to take on a bigger role today. That’s the nice thing about having a little bit of depth and guys that are buying into the system.”

Fernandez feels the best is yet to come for the Cats.

“I think we’re about 75-80 percent out of 100 percent of how good we can be,” Fernandez said. “There’s a lot of things to work on and we’re just going to keep getting better in the gym.”

DeVon Haye added 15 points to Catskill’s attack. Leviticus Johnson had 10.

Caleb Romano had 13 points and Noah Hedgepeth eight for Hudson.

HUDSON (67): Hedgepeth 3-0-8, Maines 2-1-5, Anderson 2-0-4, Griffin 11-7-29, Romano 5-1-13, Gorman 1-0-2, Johnson 3-0-6. Totals 27-9-67.

3-pointers: Hedgepeth 2, Romano 2.

CATSKILL (77): Christian 1-0-3, Johnson 4-2-10, Gibbs 0-1-1, Fernandez 16-5-39, Lowe-Scott 2-0-4, Scott 2-1-5, Haye 7-0-15. Totals 32-9-77.

3-pointers: Fernandez 2, Haye, Christian.

Maple Hill 72, Coxsackie-Athens 62

HUDSON — Blake Decker and Rian Jewett both scored 20 points to spark Maple Hill to a 72-62 victory over Coxsackie-Athens during Sunday’s Coaches vs. Cancer event at Columbia-Greene Community College.

MAple Hill led 20-12 after one quarter, 33-25 at halftime and 53-39 at the end of three quarters.

Ben Marra followed Decker and Jewett in scoring for the Wildcats with 16 points.

Aidan Boehm had 17 points for C-A. Kane Schrader chipped in with 12.

COXSACKIE-ATHENS (62): Boehm 7-3-17, Hynes 1-1-3, Kiefer 2-2-7, Richardson 2-0-4, Roe 1-0-2, Kane Schrader 5-0-12, Killian Schrader 4-1-9, Simmons 4-0-8. Totals 26-7-62.

3-pointers: Kane Schrader 2, Kiefer.

MAPLE HILL (72): Decker 6-8-20, Hirschoff 3-2-9, Jewett 6-6-20, Marra 5-6-16, Shaw 0-2-2, Sherwood 1-0-2, Utter 1-0-3. Totals 22-24-72.

3-pointers: Jewett 2, Utter, Hirschoff.

Greenville 74, Cairo-Durham 40

HUDSON — Damien Fiducia dropped 25 points to spark Greenville to a 74-40 triumph over Cairo-Durham in Saturday’s Coaches vs Cancer event at Columbia-Greene Community College.

JJ O’Connor contributed 12 points to the Spartans’ cause. James Mitchell had 10.

Ethan Phillips’ 13 points set the pace for the Mustangs.

Greenville jumped ut to a 15-5 lead after one quarter and never looked back, widening ghe gap to 32-14 at halftime and 50-27 through three quarters.

CAIRO-DURHAM (40): Salvatore 2-0-6, Handel 1-4-6, Phillips 4-1-13, Doble 2-1-5, Rivera 1-0-2, Morgan 1-2-4, O’Connell 2-0-4. Totals 13-8-40.

3-pointers: Phillips 4, Salvatore 2.

GREENVILLE (74): Fiducia 11-2-25, Weiss 2-0-4, Nicosia 3-3-9, Mitchell 4-0-10, Benning 1-1-4, Smith 1-0-3, Makely 2-0-4, Biernacki 0-1-1, Lewis 1-0-2, O’Connor 4-2-12. Totals 29-9-74.

3-pointers: O’Connor 2, Mitchell 2, Fiducia, Bening, Smith.

Chatham 55, Germantown 44

HUDSON — Chatham broke up a tie game with a big second quarter run and went on to defeat Germantown, 55-44, in the Coaches vs. Cancer event at Columbia-Greene Community College on Saturday.

With the scored deadlocked 12-12 after one quarter, Chatham went on a 15-5 second quarter ru to take the lead for good. The Panthers were up 37-29 entering the final stanza.

Zach Gregg topped Chatham with 15 points. Quinten Kastner and Jayshawn Williams each had 11.

Germantown’s top scorer was Robbie Eaton, who finished with 20. Dylan Mayr and Bryan Bathrick both had eight.

GERMANTOWN (44): Eaton 7-4-20, Mayr 2-2-8, Anderson 1-0-2, Rifenburgh 1-1-4, Bathrick 2-3-8, McKinney 0-2-2. Totals 13-12-44.

3-pointers: Eaton 2, Mayr 2, Rifenburgh, Bathrick.

CHATHAM (55): Gregg 5-2-15, Kastner 5-1-11, Williams 3-5-11, Van Tassel 0-1-1, T. Jeralds 2-1-5, Clarke 3-0-7, Ford 2-0-5. Totals 20-10-55.

3-pointers: Gregg 3, Clarke, Ford.

Catskill 77, Mt. St. Joseph 52

ALBANY — DeVon Haye and Lavon Fernandez combined for 55 points to help Catskill defeat defending Vermont state champion Mt. St. Joseph’s Academy, 77-52, in Saturday’s Zero Gravity North South Classic at Washington avenue Armory.

Haye led all scorers with 29 points, while Fernandez had 26 and five dunks, including one where on a fastbreak he bounced the basketball high off the floor and one-hand slammed it.

Leviticus Johnson has 11 points fr the Cats, who built quarterly leads of 21-8, 44-23 and 68-33.

“It’s important we get out of our comfort zone and be challenged this time of the year,” Catskill coach Doug Lampman said. “Ifelt the team rose to the environment and played one of ur better games of the season.

“Our defense did a nice job of keeping their scorers off balance. It was a nice team win. We are getting pretty close where we want them.”

MSJA (52): Blanchard 0-1-1, Chadburn 8-0-22, Mercure 1-0-2, Passmore 1-4-7, Pranty 4-2-13, Vitagleno 1-0-2, Williams 1-0-2, Woods 1-0-3. Totals 17-7-40.

3-pointers: Chadburn 6, Pranty 3, Woods, Passmore.

CATSKILL (77): Christian 1-0-2, Johnson 2-7-11, Fernandez 11-4-26, Donely 2-2-6, Gibbs 1-0-3, Haye 11-4-29. Totals 29-18-77.

3-pointers: Haye 3.

Cohoes 69, Ichabod Crane 56

VALATIE — Freshman Royal Brown scored 25 points as Cohoes earned a 69-56 victory over Ichabod Crane in Friday’s Colonial Council boys basketball game.

Ichabod Crane led 15-13 after one quarter and trailed by just 27-24 at halftime and 45-40 after three quarters, but the Tigers put the game away with a 24-16 scoring edge over te final eight minutes of play.

Troy Snyder added 15 points to the Tigers’ cause. Jonathan LaSure had 13.

Brett Richards’ 15 points topped the Riders. Ed Ogden had eight and Austin Walsh, Cameron Holzhauer and Zach KEnnedy all had seven.

COHOES (69): Brajac 3-0-6, Brown 10-5-25, Byron 1-0-3, LaSure 3-7-13, Mowers 3-0-7, Snyder 5-2-15. Totals 25-14-69.

3-pointers: Snyder 3, Mowers, Byron.

ICHABOD CRANE (56): Clickman 1-0-2, Holzhauer 3-0-7, Kennedy 3-0-7, Ogden 3-1-8, Richards 6-3-15, Schmidt 1-0-2, Suafoa 2-0-4, Vecellio 2-0-4, Walsh 3-1-7. Totals 24-5-56.

3-pointers: Holzhauer, Kennedy, Ogden.

Greenville 97, Heatly 15

GREENVILLE — Greenville opened up a 40-3 lead by the end of the first quarter and cruised t a 97-15 victory over Heatly in Friday’s non-league boys basketball game.

The Spartans extended their lead to 62-7 at halftime and 77-14 after three quarters.

Trey Smith knocked dwn fur three-pointers and finished with a game-high 18 points for Greenville. Damien Fiducia had 16, Miles Weiss 13, JJ O’Connor 12 and Ben Lewis 11.

Jacob Sedgwick had seven points to lead Heatly.

HEATLY (15): Delgado 1-0-2, Diaz 1-0-2, Monahan 0-1-1, Sagendorf 1-0-3, Sedgwick 1-4-7. Totals 4-5-15.

3-pointers: Sedgwick, Sagendorf.

GREENVILLE (97): Benning 2-0-4, Fiducia 7-0-16, Lewis 5-0-11, Makely 3-1-7, Mitchell 4-0-8, Nicosia 2-4-8, O’Connor 5-1-12, Smith 7-0-18, Weiss 4-4-13. Totals 39-10-97.

3-pointers: Smith 4, Fiducia 2, Weiss, O’Connor, Lewis.