Montrose, Sabers looking for first half crown

Once again Mother Nature caused havoc with the Lackawanna League boys basketball schedule, forcing teams to play back-to-back nights and athletic directors to jumble schedules.
Even more uncertain than the weather is predicting winners in Lackawanna League Division IV.
Mountain View entered Friday evening reeling, losing of four of their last five games and facing the host Montrose Meteors who were on their own five game winning streak.
But senior Kyle Streich preceded the weekend weather warm up with some hot shooting to lead the Eagles past the Meteors 59-51 and shake things up in the division.
Aided by Streich’s 22 points, 15 coming from behind the three-point arc, Mountain View overcame Montrose’s length and defensive pressure to capture their first regular season victory.
“We had a solid game plan going into the game and we executed it,” said Mountain View Coach Joe Gibbons. “We saw something in our scouting film that we thought we could take advantage of and we did.”
“If we can get Kyle and Mikey (Schermerhorn) those open looks, they’re going to knock them down,” added Gibbons.
Schermerhorn finished with 14 points and Alex Showalter added 13 to pace the Eagles. Evan Snyder led Montrose with 13 points, Andrew Rapisardi scored 12, and Brennan Gilhool chipped in with 11 points.
Susquehanna kept pace with Montrose for the first half crown by gaining some revenge against Elk Lake with a 64-43 victory.
The Warriors had defeated Susquehanna in hard fought contest two weeks prior at the local Christmas Tournament, but Bryce Baldwin scored 26 points to lead the Sabers and Mason Deakin dropped 20 points the second night in a row to overcome 34 points from Elk Lake’s Rierdan Reyan to gain the victory.
Leading 14-10 after the first quarter, the Sabers outscored the Warriors 35-22 over the middle quarters to pull away. Eric Lee added 10 points to aid Baldwin and Deakin.
Blue Ridge remained winless on the season falling to Forest City 62-53. The Raiders jumped out to an early lead and found themselves tied with the Foresters after one quarter. But Forest City outscored Blue Ridge 35-25 over the middle quarters to seize the victory.
Kaleb Folk paced the Raiders with 13 points and Sam Cosmello added 10. Dakota Kneher-Cook paced Forest City with 20 points and Noah Yates added 17.
On Saturday, Mountain View couldn’t sustain the momentum from the previous night’s upset when they traveled to Throop to face Mid Valley.
Collin Scherer scored 16 points to lead a trio of Spartans in double figures as Mid Valley rolled to 59-24 victory. The Eagles trailed 15-13 after one, but Mid Valley went on a tear outscoring the Eagles 21-2 in the second quarter and the fatigued locals never challenged.
Preston Petts paced Mountain View with seven points.
Shawn Jones scored 26 points and dominated the inside to lead Lackawanna Trail over Blue Ridge 69-54. Josh Rzcidulo chipped in with 17 points. The Raiders were paced by Cosmello’s 18 points and Folk chipped in with 12.
In a non-league game, Reyan remained hot for the Warriors as Elk Lake traveled to Towanda and defeated the Black Knights 70-55 behind Reyan’s 31 points.
Trailing by two entering the fourth quarter the Warriors erupted for 24 points and limited Towanda to seven.
Reyan scored 13 of his 31 in the stanza including a perfect 6-6 from the free throw line. Drew Arnold added 14 points for the Warriors.