Lake Park refuses to celebrate win over Neuqua Valley
Any win over Neuqua Valley is big, but after Lake Park pulled it off it wasn’t like the Lancers were going to Disneyland or anything.
There’s something about this squad, maybe its defensive intensity or its experience or simply confidence coming from a great start to the season after Friday’s 49-37 Upstate Eight Conference Valley victory in Roselle.
“It’s a big rivalry game, they’ve been one of the best teams in the league,” said Lake Park senior forward Zach Wagner, who scored 15 points with 11 rebounds.
“It’s a big victory for us,” he said. “I mean, we came in there thinking we were going to beat them, though. It’s nothing like too special for us this year.”
Lancers coach Josh Virostko thought it pretty nifty, though, especially since the last time Lake Park (5-1, 1-0) beat Neuqua Valley was the 2006-07 season.
“(I have) the utmost respect for coach (Todd) Sutton and what he’s built, and any time you can beat a coach Sutton team, you should be proud of that,” Virostko said.
The 1-2 punch of Wagner and fellow senior Dominique “Domo” Spencer lifted the Lancers early, the two scoring all of Lake Park’s points for a 14-8 first-quarter lead over the Wildcats (2-3, 0-1).
Senior guard K.J. Wilson had to handle Neuqua Valley’s top shooter, Tyler Sutton, the coach’s son. Sutton had games of 29 and 31 points over Thanksgiving.
“He comes into our house, I wasn’t going to allow him to do that,” Wilson said. “Coach assigned me to stick very good defense on him and that’s what I did.”
Tyler Sutton scored a team-high 14 points, but 9 came in the fourth quarter, when, as he said, “it was just too late.”
“He defended very well just denying the ball,” Tyler Sutton said of Wilson’s defense. “I was really not setting up my screens very well. I was going way too quick. Then when I got the ball I had openings, I hesitated a little bit and then he got up in my grill.”
Lake Park, which made 20 of 38 shots and held Neuqua to 13 of 36, got Scott Karlis and Dave Prentis involved offensively for a 12-0 run out of halftime, building a 36-18 lead.
Neuqua didn’t score until Nate Boudreau’s inside bucket at 2:15 of the third quarter. Against these Lancers, on this night, there was no coming back from that.
“They’re a great defensive team,” Todd Sutton said. “They covered all our shooters, took care of all our options. We just couldn’t get open looks. That was really a great job by them, they were fantastic on defense.”