By Christopher Shaban
EAGLE TIMES STAFF
CLAREMONT — One of the best local match-ups took place on Tuesday when the Cardinals welcomed the Wildcats for a basketball doubleheader.
The Stevens boys opened their season with a 58-27 win while the lady Wildcats pulled away down the stretch to move to 2-0 on the season.
Cardinal head coach Ray Curran’s boys game was scratched last week and all that pent up energy exploded on the court on Tuesday as they raced out to a 21-2 lead and never looked back. With Lucas Belisle dominating the glass, the sharp shooting of Devin Genes and Hunter LaRocque gave the Cards all the fire power they needed to open their season strong. The Wildcats began to get some muscle in the paint before half but the ¾ Cardinal press gave Fall Mountain fits all evening.
“We are a pretty athletic team and once the gates opened,” Curran said. “We were off.”
After the Wildcats scratched out a solid second quarter to close the gap a bit, The Cardinals flew out of the locker room to start the half and iced the game with a 12-4 third quarter advantage. Dylan Chambers found Lucas Belisle for a pretty give and go while Kayden LaClair was a leaping machine and dominated the glass resulting in two and three offensive opportunities for multiple shots for Stevens.
“We had good energy tonight,” Belisle said. “Our defense was solid and we just kept after them all night.”
On the other end of the court, Brady Elliot and his mates just couldn’t get into any rhythm as the quickness of the Cardinals just took over the game.
“We didn’t find our flow tonight. They kept us out of sync,” said Fall Mountain head coach Mitch Harrison. “We needed to bring more intensity onto the court.”
LaClair led all scorers with 16 points, Trystan Lane added 10 points and Genes and LaRocque chipped in with seven points each. Elliott led Fall Mountain with eight points.
The nightcap featured a Fall Mountain team that dug in defensively and rode the hot hand of Avery Stewart to a 47-35 win. The man-to-man Wildcat defense featured Makenna Grillone matched up with Cardinal sharpshooter Kiley Bundy for most of the game to try and negate Bundy’s three-point shooting. That tactic worked in Fall Mountain’s favor but the defensive intensity of Fall Mountain was the difference on Tuesday.
“Fall Mountain is a solid team and their defense was tenacious,” said Stevens head coach Steve Condon. “They used that 1-2-2 zone on us and threw us for a loop.”
Alyssa Paquette and Zahna Rice kept the Cardinals close but a 7-0 Fall Mountain run closed out the half with the Wildcats up 27-19 as Avery Stewart drilled a three pointer to end with 11 points at the break.
Fall Mountain kept at the press and disrupted the Cardinal flow but three pointers from Rice, Bundy and Molly Derosier sliced the Fall Mountain lead to 34-30 until a Nora Dunnigan three-pointer of her own gave the momentum right back to Fall Mountain, 38-30 entering the final frame.
“We tried to speed up the game as best as we could. There was no way we could match up with them in the paint. I think we dictated tempo pretty well tonight.”
As Paquette started to find some space and her shot started to fall, so were the shots of Grillone and Stewart as that duo pushed the Fall Mountain lead to 44-33.
“Stevens came to play tonight,” said Stewart after the game. “I think we dictated the speed of the game the way we like it and our defense was spot on tonight.”
Stewart led everyone with 19 points while Dunnigan and Grillone dropped in 14 and 10 points each for Fall Mountain. Paquette led the Cardinals with 13 hard points.
Fall Mountain (0-2) will head to Mascenic, Stevens (1-1) will venture off to Gilford while the Fall Mountain women (2-0) will welcome Mascenic all on Friday while the Lady Cardinals (1-1) will travel to Winnisquam on Monday.
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