SMETHPORT — Let’s make it perfectly clear it’s not for the lack of effort the Smethport High School boys’ basketball team has fallen to 0-6 overall and 0-3 in the North Tier League.
Sophomore Zach Layag scored 16 points and freshman Jared Green added 14 more as Coudersport eventually exhausted a depleted Hubber squad with a 56-24 NTL decision on Wednesday.
While all nine players on the Coudy roster registered at least one point in the scorebook, the weary Hubs barely had enough bodies to field a volleyball team.
“I only had six players tonight and that makes it tough,” said Jim Thomas, Smethport head coach. “You get to the tail end of the third quarter and they (Falcons) were beating us down the floor.”
The Potter County visitors utilized five points from Green to jump out to a 7-2 lead at the 6:41 mark, but the Hubs countered with four points from Caleb O’Neal and two more from Steven Greene to take an 8-7 advantage with 2:06 left in the first stanza.
“I thought we were getting better and then I don’t know what happened,” Thomas stated.
A 3-pointer by Michael Chambers keyed a 7-0 Falcon run to open a 14-8 margin with 5:08 remaining in the half.
Consecutive buckets by O’Neal and Mike DeLuca pulled the hosts within 14-12, but once again Coudy responded with a dagger as a triple by Derek Keglovits made it 17-12 at the 4:08 juncture.
“We didn’t shoot the ball real well in the first half, but we made a couple of shots to give us a cushion and our defense was pretty solid,” said Brian Furman, Coudy head mentor.
Coudy was leading 21-15 at the intermission when Layag buried a trifecta from the top of the key and Aaron Wolfinger drilled another from the left side during a 10-0 spurt that put the game out of grasp at 31-15 with 1:17 left in the third period.
“We had too many turnovers and we couldn’t buy a basket in the second half,” Thomas admitted. “We got real sloppy and that hurt.”
Layag finalized the quarter with another trey and then swished two more from the left wing in the fourth as the disparity mushroomed to 45-19 with 6:41 left.
“We made a bunch of 3s in the third and fourth quarters,” Furman noted. “I’ll have to go back and watch the tape, but we didn’t miss too many open shots in the second half. We wore them (Hubbers) down a little bit. We used nine guys and they all played both halves.”
Coudy (3-1, 3-0) will host Troy on Monday while Smethport travels to Northern Potter on Friday.
COUDERSPORT (56)
Ricke 3-0-0-6, Furman 2-1-2-5, Keglovits 2-0-0-5, Layag 6-0-0-16, Wolfinger 1-1-2-4, Croke 1-0-0-2, Matzinger 0-1-2-1, Chambers 1-0-0-3, Green 6-2-4-14, Totals 22-5-10-56
SMETHPORT (24)
Palmer 1-0-0-2, DeLuca 3-0-1-7, O’Neal 4-1-2-10, Nelson 0-1-4-1, Greene 1-2-4-4, Tanner 0-0-1-0, Totals 9-4-12-24
By Quarters
Coudersport 8 13 16 19 — 56
Smethport 11 4 2 7 — 24
Three-point FGs: Coudersport (7) — Layag 4, Keglovits, Wolfinger, Chambers; Smethport (2) — DeLuca, O’Neal
JV Score: Coudersport 53-9
