Gators get the win

Standley Lake was able to give itself a pretty good New Year’s present to begin the 2015 portion of the boys basketball season.

Standley Lake defeated visiting Green Mountain, 54-35, Jan. 7, behind solid performances by Connor Durant, Jeremy Minnick and Rory Gishwiller on the offensive side of the ball and some outstanding defensive efforts from Brodey Hoffman. With the victory, the Gators improved to 3-6 while dropping the Rams to 3-5.

Durant led the way in the scoring column with 17 points and, too, was a force underneath the basket defensively. He scored eight of Standley Lakes 12 first quarter points to get the offensive game on track. Yet it wasn’t a high scoring game by any means from either team as overall defense played it’s part.

Standley Lake led 12-11 after the first quarter of play and 26-15 at the intermission. It was more difficult for Green Mountain to break loose in the second and third quarters as the Rams could only come through with four and two points respectively, thus trailing 37-17 going into the fourth quarter.

One of the main reasons for a lack of scoring for Green Mountain was the defensive effort that Hoffman was able to apply to the Rams leading scorer, Austin Fitts, holding him to only six points.

Hoffman, pleased with the entire team’s defensive effort, had hoped for a higher offensive output.

“Our score was a bit lower than usual, but we were able to come up with the defensive plays,” Hoffman said. “I defended against (Fritts) and I was a little nervous against him to start. But when he had an early air ball, I was a lot more comfortable. I was able to get the boards, a key for me.”

Durant was also pleased with Hoffman’s defensive effort as well as his offensive output. He knew the Gators put on a tough effort against him.

“It was big to be able to take out their number one scorer,” Durant said. “He’s real good and to hold him under 10 was just great. We had good defense and we had some long shots that really helped us. We just want to keep a flow with our offense and not force it all the time. We were not in a hurry and we were able to come out strong.”

Standley Lake coach, Mike Puccio, was also pleased with the outstanding defensive effort.

“We wanted to be defensively tough and the boys did an outstanding good job tonight,” Puccio said. “We were good at eliminating second shots for them and getting them for us and it was a good night executing our game plan.”

Alec Stowell was the only Green Mountain player to reach double-figures, with 10. It just wasn’t a good night for the Rams or coach Derek Van Tassel.

“We missed a lot of opportunities and made a lot of mistakes,” Van Tassel said. “We are still a young team and they hit the big shots against us. It was like a football game out there. It was very physical and not that many fouls were called. We just didn’t do well and we have a long ways to go with a lot of work to do.”

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