By Mark Carpenter-
It was a late-season non-conference contest on Saturday, Jan. 26 at North Adams High School as the Green Devils played host to the Indians from Lucasville Valley. The Devils were looking to rebound from a very tough conference loss at Eastern Brown the previous night and with three players hitting in double figures, the Devils took the lead midway through the first quarter and never gave it up on their way to handing the visiting Indians a 60-49 defeat.
North Adams was paced by Elijah Young’s 19 points, 15 of those coming from beyond the three-point arc. Austin McCormick added 13 and Cade Meade 11 as the Devils led by as much as 25 in claiming their 13th win of the season against just three losses.
“It was nice to bounce back with a win and get to 13-3,” said North Adams head coach Nathan Copas after the game. “Even though we were up double digits most of the night, our energy on both ends wasn’t very good. We made runs when we needed to make runs and Elijah hit some big shots. We’d stretch the lead and then let up and let them get some easy scores at the rim, but we did spend a lot of energy in last night’s game.”
“It’s just nice to get back in the win column.”
On Saturday night, the first basket of the game went to Valley’s Tanner Cunningham, but it was all North Adams from that point on, as the Indians went the next eight minutes without scoring. It took the Devils almost four minutes to get on the board with an Elijah Young three-pointer, but that began a 10-0 run that included another trey from Seth Meade and the opening period ended with the home team holding a 10-2 advantage.
The Valley drought ended when Andrew Shope scored to begin the second stanza, but the Devils answered with back-to-back triples from the Meade twins, Seth and Cade. to extend the margin out to 16-4. The Indians answered with six straight to cut the North Adams lead to single digits, but the home team responded with a 7-0 run of their own, started by another Young trey and took a 23-10 lead into the halftime break.
Any hopes the Indians had of fighting their way back into this contest were extinguished three minutes into the third quarter. Leading 28-14 the Devils’ Elijah Young went on a rampage, three treys on three consecutive possessions, starting in one corner, moving to the other corner, and then going back to the original corner to give his team a commanding 37-14 lead. Two free throws by McCormick pushed the lead out to 25, before the Indians gained back some composure with three-pointers from Shope and Connor Fell. Valley finished the third quarter on a 7-2 run, but that only allowed them to shrink the North Adams lead down to 47-29 entering the fourth.
After McCormick hit a pair from the charity stripe to start the fourth, the Indians circled the wagons one final time, going on a 7-0 run spurred by two baskets from Mason Zaler to draw within 49-36 with just over five minutes left in the game. The Devils answered with baskets from Young, Jayden Hesler, and Cade Meade to keep the Indians at arm’s length and the home team was never really threatened from that point forward.
North Adams got another pair of McCormick free throws, as the big man went 7 for 8 from the line, and finished their scoring in grand style, getting a pretty up and under layup from Ethan Campbell with 40 seconds to go to close out the 60-49 win.
After the Saturday night success, the Devils had a few days off to attempt to stay warm and find a way to prepare for their Friday, Feb. 1 rematch with the Ripley Blue Jays, who stood 9-0 in the Southern Hills Athletic Conference at press time, with a two-game lead over second place North Adams. The Jays already have a win in Seaman on Dec. 21, handing the Devils a 62-50 defeat.
Lucasville Valley
2 8 19 20 —49
North Adams
10 13 24 13 —60
Valley (49): Stuart 1 0-0 2, Shope 3 0-0 8, Ellis 1 0-0 2, Mitchell 0 4-6 4, Fell 2 0-0 5, Mollete 1 2-2 5, Cunningham 5 0-1 11, Zaler 6 0-2 12, Team 19 6-11 49.
N. Adams (60): Hesler 2 0-1 4, C. Young 2 0-0 5, Campbell 1 0-0 2, S. Meade 2 0-0 6, E. Young 7 0-0 19, C. Meade 5 0-0 11, McCormick 3 7-8 13, Team 22 7-9 60.
Three-Point Goals:
Valley (5)- Shope 2, Fell 1, Mollete 1, Cunningham 1
N. Adams (9)- C. Young 1, S. Meade 2, E. Young 5, C. Meade 1