All photos courtesy of Jay Berkman.
Both regular season meetings between the Canton and Potsdam boys’ varsity basketball teams were tight, defensive battles. The Golden Bears won both of those contests, 47-42 in mid-December at Jerry Hourihan Gymnasium in Canton, and 43-34 on the first day of February in Potsdam.
Fans packed Maxcy Hall at SUNY Potsdam anticipating another close contest when the two teams met in the Section X Class B title game on Friday night, but instead witnessed one of the most dominant performances in a championship game in Section X history, as top-seeded Canton raced out to a 30-0 lead in the first 12 minutes of the game en route to a 67-35 win over the No. 2 seeded Sandstoners.
The Golden Bears, now 19-3 on the season and winners of their last 14 games, were named the No. 2 seed in the Section X Overall Championship and will face the No. 3 seed, Class C champion Tupper Lake, at 6 p.m. on Tuesday night back at Maxcy Hall.
NAC Central Co-MVP Ryan Jones led Canton with 22 points, six assists and three steals. Zadok Roiger posted a double-double with 19 points, 11 rebounds and four assists, while Ethan Francey added 10 points and three assists.
“We had a big game hitting our shots,” said Golden Bears’ head coach Troy Lassial in a postgame interview with Dave Shea of the Watertown Daily Times. “If we play defense like that and shoot like that, we are very tough to beat. We picked a great time to have a great shooting night and Ryan Jones did a great job of setting people up. He has great court vision.”
Seniors Jones and Francey — who were NAC Central Co-MVPs for the Canton boys’ soccer team in the fall — were the catalysts behind an 18-0 run in the first quarter. Jones scored 10 points, while Francey, who typically makes his biggest contribution to the team on the defensive end of the floor, scored the other eight, including a pair of 3-point buckets which brought the Canton student section to its feet.
Canton rattled off 12 more points in the first four minutes of the second quarter before Potsdam (15-7) was finally able to get the goose egg off their side of the scoreboard when Ian VanWagner, selected by the NAC Central Division coaches to share the conference’s MVP honor with Jones, hit a driving layup with just over four minutes remaining in the first half.
VanWagner scored all seven of Potsdam’s first half points, as the Sandstoners trailed 38-7 at the break. He added 20 points in the second half to lead all scorers with 27 of Potsdam’s 35 points, but the Sandstoners were never able to gain enough momentum to recover from the opening barrage.
Team defense has been the hallmark of the Golden Bears’ 14-game winning streak. Since falling to Section II powerhouse Stillwater on December 22, Canton has allowed just 29.3 points per game, with only one opponent (Gouverneur on January 29) eclipsing 40 points in a 66-42 contest.
The winner of Tuesday’s night’s game between the Golden Bears and Tupper Lake will face the winner of the game between Class A champion Massena and Class D winner Harrisville for the Section X overall title on Friday, March 1, at 8:15 p.m. All three games will take place at SUNY Potsdam’s Maxcy Hall.
Regardless of the outcome of this week’s Section X Overall Championship games, Canton will represent Section X in the New York State Class B Championship. The Golden Bears have a bye into the quarterfinal round and will face the winner of a first-round game between the Section VII and Section II champions at 2:45 p.m. on Saturday, March 9, once again at SUNY Potsdam’s Maxcy Hall.
