Ansonia – The Russia Raider brought a 16-1 season record to the Saturday night court while the Ansonia Tigers were bringing an injury-riddled team coming off a Friday night double overtime loss to National Trail while the Raiders were bouncing back from its first loss of the season to down the Tigers 72-21.
“Very proud of our effort,” said Ansonia coach, Tony Overton. “Tonight I knew it was going to be a whole nother animal. Russia is taller, bigger, and faster than us.”
“Last night didn’t go as expected but Anna played very well, they shot it well and we didn’t execute some things,” said Russia coach, Spencer Cordonnier. “The only thing you can do is learn from it and move on – it’s not the end of the world.”
“Ansonia has a lot of injuries going on – it’s just a tough situation for them,” Coach Cordonnier added. “For the most part, we got good shots every time down playing an up-tempo game.”
Four Ansonia seniors, Jakob Creager, Ethan Reichert, Garrett Stammen, and Landyn Bowman took up residence in street clothes on the Tigers’ bench bringing cause for Coach Overton to reach down to his JV squad to fill out the roster for the night.
“Last night was tough, it was a game we expected to win,” said Ansonia coach, Tony Overton. “We had some incidents on Thursday that hurt us. Ethan Reichert twisted his ankle and Landyn Bowman is in a work release program for school, he had to use a knife and he cut himself really bad and had six stitches in his shooting hand. He tried to play last night and the stitches came open.”
To compound matters for Tigers, the Raiders opened the season 16-0 and were coming off their first loss of the season, a Friday night 52-48 loss to the Anna Rockets, and had something to prove.
The taller Russia Raiders took the opening period 22-2 as the smaller Tigers struggled to get baskets to drop.
Ansonia’s Matt Barga hit six second-quarter points, Trevor Hemmerich added a basket and a free throw for three points and Landyn Bowman hit a bucket giving the Tigers its best quarter of the night with 11 points while the Raiders were having its best period of the night with 24 points sending the teams to the break with the visitors leading 46-13.
“They’re up 33 points right before half and they have a starter diving for a loose ball with three seconds to go,” Overton said. “Those are things we can do, we can’t be 6’5”, God didn’t make us that way but that’s the type of intensity that we need to have. That’s what we’re trying to do here and we are getting there. I am very proud of our effort – we play hard. We’re going to get there and I’m excited about the future of Ansonia basketball.”
Russia took a 35-point lead, 48-13 at 7:22 in the third putting a running clock in play for the remainder of the game. Matt Barga nailed his second triple of the night to account for the Tigers’ three third-quarter points. The Raiders added 14 points to the board sending the teams to the final quarter of play with Russia owning a commanding 60-16 advantage.
Ansonia’s fourth-quarter points came from freshman, Jocob Schmitmeyer’s two-point basket and sophomore Ben Barnt coming up from the JV squad to hit his first career varsity 3-pointer. The Raider added 12 fourth-quarter points to the board for a 51-point Raiders win.
“This summer we had an outstanding summer when we had all of our horses, we had the excitement,” Coach Overton said. “As soon as Garrett went down these boy’s spirits – it’s been tough but they fight hard.”
BOXSCORE:
RUSSIA – J. Grogan 16, H. Quinter 12, F. Francis 8, V. Borchers 8, B. Monnin 7, D. Francis 6, B. York 5, B. Cordonnier 5, L. Monnin 3, Z. Schulze 2 – TOTALS 19 10-13 8 72
ANSONIA – M. Barga 11, T. Hemmerich 3, B. Barnt 3, J. Schmitmeyer 2, L. Bowman
3-POINTERS
Russia 8 (J. Grogan 4, B. Monnin 1, V. Borchers 1, B.Cordonnier 1, L. Monnin 1)
Ansonia 2 (Matt Barga 1, B. Barnt 1)
SCORE by QUARTERS
22-24-14-12 72 Russia
02-11-03-05 21 Ansonia
