CENTRAL NEW YORK – Now having spent a month perched atop the state Class B rankings, the Marcellus boys basketball team is giving fans no reason to think that the run at the top will concluded.
The Mustangs’ latest big conquest was the Bishop Grimes Martin Luther King Jr. Tournament held early last week, where in the opening round Marcellus turned back Utica Academy of Science 64-40.
Battling to a 32-15 halftime lead, the Mustangs saw Will Burnett get 20 points, nine rebounds and four assists. Dom Gosh-Sandy grabbed 13 rebounds as Mitch Donegan had 14 points. Tucker Burnett chimed in with nine points, nine assists and seven rebounds as Codey Kocela added eight points.
A day later, in the championship game, Marcellus met Rochester’s Bishop Kearney, who mostly stayed with the Mustangs with the exception of a decisive third quarter that ended up putting it 71-62 in the Mustangs’ favor.
Even with an early lead, Marcellus saw Kearney cut it to 33-31 by halftime, but in the third the Mustangs limited Kearney to five points while building up its margin to 48-36.
Five Mustangs scored in double figures, led by Jacob Meyer, who set a new season mark with 15 points as Tucker Burnett got a double-double of 14 points and 11 rebounds.
Will Burnett had 12 points and nine points, with Donegan matching Tucker Burnett’s 14 points and Gosh-Sandy pouring in 11 points.
When it next took the court Friday night at Phoenix, Marcellus joined the Firebirds Community for its “Pink Out” event to promote cancer awareness through the Baldwin Fund, which announced $50,000 worth of donations in memory of members of the Phoenix community affected by cancer.
As to the game, the Mustangs beat the Firebirds 70-50, and more importantly it marked the return of Will Kershaw to the lineup after he missed a month due to injury.
Kershaw had an immediate impact, earning 15 points and dishing out four assists as the Mustangs steadily built a 41-24 lead by halftime. Will Burnett led with 20 points and seven rebounds, while Donegan had 13 points.
Despite a 2-10 record, Solvay had played better than that mark, and finally got rewarded for it last Tuesday when it hosted Jordan-Elbridge and routed the Eagles 65-47.
Off to a quick start, the Bearcats built on it by outscoring J-E 16-7 in the second quarter to establish a 36-22 advantage, one that remained steady the rest of the night.
Landon Raymond finished with 17 points, most of it from four 3-pointers. This along with 16-point outings by A.J. Trendell and Jairo DeJesus, overcame the 21 points from J-E’s Nolan Brunelle and 13 points from Preston Murray.
J-E turned it around from there and, on Friday night, defeated Skaneateles 56-53, the game tight from start to finish and nearly snatched by the Lakers due to Reed Danforth’s 28 points, nine rebounds, three assists and three steals.
But two players carried the Eagles to victory, Brunelle getting 26 points and Murray chiming in with 20 points to help J-E improve its record to 7-5 as Skaneateles fell to 7-4.
Solvay, meanwhile, lost 69-52 to Cazenovia, outscored in every quarter. Aiyden Geigel led the Bearcats with 23 points and Mojica had 10 points, but the Lakers got 23 points from Ben Bianco and 18 points from Edmond Richardson.
