The Cortland varsity boys basketball team will be playing in the finals of this year’s Cortland Basketball Holiday Tournament after a dominating 65-34 win over Dryden last night.
Last night’s game began with the Cortland Tigers immediately attacking Dryden, as the Tigers would take an early first quarter lead of 17-4.
The Tigers would then keep dominating not only offensively, but defensively as well as the game went on. Cortland ended the first half with a comfortable 19-point lead (35-16).
“I give the kids a lot of credit tonight,” said coach Jeremey Milligan. “We were lucky enough to watch Dryden play on the beginning of the season and identify a couple of their guards who are strong players. So the last couple of days in practice, we’ve been harping on which players we would hold right and left. So I give our defenders a lot of credit, starting with Ethan Myers who is one of the premier defenders in our league. He has a high basketball IQ out there on defense and I think a lot of the team’s energy starts with him.”
Coming into the third quarter, Cortland would not fall back and were able to further their lead with some great ball movement and defensive of pressure to win the game 65-34.
“The third quarter has been our Achilles' heel this year,” said coach Milligan. “In multiple games we would have double digit lead at halftime and we would come out and struggle in the third quarter to score and contain the opposing team. So coming into that third quarter we wanted to forget about what the scoreboard had to say and make sure that we did what we knew what we were capable of.”
Junior guard, Noah Armstrong led the Tigers with a total of 15-points and a couple of assists throughout the game. Following Armstrong, was sophomore Max Gambitta with 12-points on the night.
"I just like to put my teammates in the best position possible,” said Armstrong. “We started off the game hot with three pick and rolls. I scored off the first one and got two assists in the next to start everything. In the third quarter we were able to run some plays correctly to set each other up and get the win.”
The Tigers will now be facing Moravia at the Tournament’s Championship game tonight (December 28th). The game is scheduled to start at 5:45 p.m.
“This will be a rematch from last year’s Championship game,” said Coach Milligan. “Last year we were able to see Moravia in the Championship and they’re always a team that plays hard and are well balanced. We will certainly have our hands full; but if we continue to play hard, then it should be an exciting Championship game!”
Here are some more photos of last night's game:
