It would have made a great storyline for a movie.
Friday night when the Newbury Black Knights traveled to Cornerstone Christian to do battle with the Patriots in a Division IV sectional final tilt, you could imagine Richard Harris leading his troops against Sean Connery in an epic fight.
Alas, it was first-year coach Dan Jones taking his small band of warriors to do battle with Dan Selle and his deep and talented band of Patriots. The outcome could be clearly seen before a second ticked off the clock, as a Black Knight player misfired on a pair of free throws after a scorebook error was discovered by officials, but it didn’t really matter.
Nick Manfroni and Michael Bothwell of Cornerstone each drilled a 3-point bucket in the first two minutes to open a 6-0 lead, but with 4:13 left in the first period, Patrick Walker did the same, and one had to wonder if this might be a ballgame.
After a timeout, the Patriots, with 15 boys in uniform, started going to their bench in waves. Jones could only blink and admire what Selle had to work with, and the blowout was on.
When it finally ended, Cornerstone moved to district action Monday night in Orwell at Grand Valley High to battle Maplewood, while the Black Knights could only grow from the 85-24 thumping they had experienced.
“They are definitely more athletic and competitive than we are,” Jones said of the Patriots. “They showed a lot more fire in using their overall skills. That’s something that we just didn’t have.
“I had to be honest with the kids after the game about that. We talked about putting up tougher challenges for teams. Learning to compete is a year-round thing. It’s very easy to say it, but doing it is not so easy. They really outclassed us as a team, but we gave it our best shot the whole way.”
There is one major positive that Jones can use in leading his young team. With just two seniors, Zach Grubbs and Justin Cascone, the rest of the cupboard may not be fully stocked, but the parts are highly workable if the time and effort is put in over the off-season.
“We do need to put in keeping the Black Knights from getting comfortable in their offense,” Jones added.
Cornerstone dominated the boards at both ends to set up an offense that got off more shots, 83-37, while forcing more turnovers, 28-8.
While maybe a little misleading, the Black Knights won the percentage of assists to baskets. With only seven successes from the floor, they did have six assists. Grubbs had three of those, Thomas Csepi and Patrick Walkers each tallied six points, and Cascone added five.
Starting Patriot guard Greg Oliver may have tipped his team’s hand when he was apparently miffed at being taken from the game with less than two minutes gone. Selle had just given him a short reminder of the task at hand for the team.
“Coach just reminded me that I had to work harder at what I needed to do for the team,” Oliver, a senior, said. “I’m here to play defense and get things going early in games, and Coach just wanted me to settle in more.”
The effort demanded of the Patriots shown through as Anthony Cutting didn’t get into the game until the fourth period. But the things Cornerstone did showed no change in spite of part changes.
“I think out team played great tonight,” Cutting said. “We put in a lot of work, but I can only give glory for our success to God, who has blessed us all season with successes. Newbury played a really hard game, too, and we didn’t have anything come easy to us. We have a great team balance here, and I’m proud to have a chance to be part of it.”
Having seen the Black Knights early in the season, if they had problems, it often snowballed and they let up in their efforts.
That did not happen in this game, however, though it would have been easy for Newbury to throw in the towel. They worked on defense and ran the offense, but simply were overwhelmed.
“I told the kids to keep their heads up in the locker room,” Jones said. “We’ve got the Newbury Basketball Academy coming up soon, so I just told the kids to keep their heads up and keep working hard. Good things will come for them with hard work. This is not the same team we started out with, but the kids have worked very hard and I’m proud to be their coach.”
The Black Knights finish the season at 7-15 under Jones.
Jones has started NBA, or Newbury Basketball Academy, a skills clinic available for boys in kindergarten through eighth grade. The clinic will run every Monday, Wednesday and Friday from 6:30 to 8 p.m. and is free to anyone in the Newbury area. Contact Jones at djones@ndc.edu or 330-647-9446 for more information.