Canton 51, Gouverneur 30
The Bears came back with a vengeance following their skid to start the season. Canton was facing off against a former Section X MVP in Raine Rumble. One year removed from averaging 22 points per game on a subpar Gouverneur team, the senior is hungry for wins. The Wildcats opened the year 2-0 against Heuvelton and Hermon-Dekalb.
The first quarter saw the bears jump out to an impressive 12-1 lead, which grew to 22-1. John Wilcox, who has had some foul trouble throughout the season guarded Rumble effortlessly, holding him to a four-point first half on bad efficiency, while the rest of his team put up just two points. The score after one half of basketball was 24-6. Charlie Todd had nine of the Bears 11 at one point in the game, and he ended with 13.
The third quarter was more of the same as after three, as the Bears were up 40-11. The Bears experimented a bit, putting Zadok Roiger on Rumble while Wilcox was sitting. This was one of the better gambles we’ve seen from coach Troy Lassial, as still, Rumble couldn’t find anything offensively. John Wilcox is most definitely the best defender on this team, but Roiger put up an impressive performance. He used his length to stop and showed Lassial that he can be trusted guarding another team’s best player.
At the start of the fourth quarter, the Bears put out a new five and they did not perform as impressively as the starters. The Wildcats went on a 10-0 run and cut the lead to 19 after a couple minutes due to turnover prone basketball by the Bears’ second unit. Rumble put up more points this two minute span than he did the entire game. The starters then came back in and finished the job.
Zadok Roiger put up a double double, with 20 and 10 on an impressive 9-12 from the field, with Charlie Todd and Jackson Ames following that up with 13 and 11, respectively. Still a glaring weakness for the home team on Tuesday was the scoring outside of those big three. Jackson Ames and Zadok Roiger both have had top-three scoring performances on their team in four games straight, and the Bears need to find scoring outside of those two if their goal of giving themselves a shot at the state championship will come to fruition.
Canton 50, Malone 39
After a comeback win by Potsdam over Malone on Tuesday, the Huskies were back on their home floor playing against a tough opponent in the Bears. They came into the game 2-2 with just one single Senior in the rotation. The 1-3 Bears were finding their groove defensively, but were still having struggles on offense, with just one 50 point game.
The first quarter was back and forth, ending at 11-10. The Bears are a defensive minded team, and there was a defensive gameplay, and that was to keep the Huskies out of their high-post handoff, and their zoom action being a down screen into a dribble handoff. The Bears always double those ball screens, but the help was important because the Huskies ball handlers are very good at finding open men in close proximity, especially on the roll.
After an 11-point second quarter that broke the game open a little bit, the score was 22-16 after two. The feisty defense from Malone was the biggest problem for the Bears’ offensive attack. They were attacking the Bears below the waist in the paint, and it caused multiple turnovers. Malone just couldn’t find enough on offense to back that up.
The biggest problem for Malone offensively was Jackson Ames. The Malone big, Blake Hanna couldn’t get around him and get to his finishes that he has been quite good at this season. The Bears help defense also proved supportive, as in the previous game, Malone got numerous wide open layups from simply swinging the ball around, while they couldn’t find such success on Friday. The game stalled out somewhat and the Bears kept a 10-to-16 point lead for most of the second half.
Zadok Roiger once again led the Canton scoring with 18 points and grabbing 11 off the glass, his second double double of the year, while Jackson Ames once again followed that up with an 11-point performance.
On the year, two Bears are averaging double digits going into the second week of league play. Roiger leads the way averaging an outstanding 18.2 points per game, while putting up 9 boards and 2 assists per tilt. Ames averages 10.2 points per game as well, and the Bears average 47.4 points overall.
The Section X MVP favorite going into the year was undoubtedly Ian VanWagner, the star guard for Potsdam, but Roiger is starting to emerge as a dark horse candidate. Last Year, Ryan Jones split the MVP total because of team success and good efficiency, and Roiger is arguably putting up better numbers and definitely having better efficiency thus far. If the Bears can put a run together and dominate the section, the MVP title is up for grabs.
The Bears look ahead to Massena on Tuesday at home and Harrisville on Friday away next week to try to push past .500.