Fort Frye boys cruise past Frontier, 69-30
Trending
BEVERLY -- This week could well be a pivotal one for the Fort Frye Cadets boys basketball team in its quest to claim its eighth Pioneer Valley Conference crown in the past nine years.
The host Cadets improved to 3-0 in conference play Wednesday night with a dominating 69-30 win over a much improved Frontier Cougar team.
With Frontier playing for the second straight night, the Cadets came out aggressive from the opening tip and had the game well in hand by the time the first quarter was complete.
"We did exactly what we wanted to do. … We wanted to come out and play quick and play fast and make them run up and down the floor," said Fort Frye head coach Eric Henniger. "We forced them into taking some bad shots and when you do that you've got to make your shots too and our guys were able to do that tonight."
The Cadets scored the first 14 points of the game with junior Brady Schilling having the hot hand early on with six points.
Frontier finally got on the board when Kyle Daugherty scored on an assist from Logan Brookover but Fort Frye quickly answered with a 3-pointer by Devin Layton and a deuce by Zane Greenleaf to open up a 19-2 lead.
Later in the first quarter Layton knocked down his second triple of the period as the Cadets led 27-9 after the first eight minutes.
Greenleaf's 3-ball early in the second quarter gave the Fort its first 20-point lead of the game as it continued to pad its lead.
Brookover connected on a 3-pointer for the Cougars late in the second period to cut the lead to 19, but the Cadets got a field goal by Schilling and a pair of free throws by Kelton Fogle to take a 46-23 lead into half time.
Eight different Cadet players scored at least one bucket in the opening half with five Fort Frye cagers tallying at least six points.
"Our guys played very unselfish I thought and moved the ball very well," said Henniger, whose team shot 57 percent (16-28) from the floor in the opening half. "We saw a lot of great passes and a lot of guys filling the lanes. When you've got an unselfish team that takes advantage of opportunities you have a chance to win a lot of games."
A pair of baskets by Greenleaf opened the second half for Fort Frye and after Brookover converted a free throw and a field goal, the Cadets scored the final six points of the quarter to increase their lead to a commanding 56-26.
Greenleaf led the Cadets in scoring with 18 points while Schilling added 13 and Layton came off the bench to score 11, including three from behind the arc.
After getting off to a slow start the Cadets have now won six of their last seven games to improve to 6-4 on the season.
Fort Frye will look to remain undefeated in the PVC Friday night when they travel to Caldwell.
"It's a big goal to win the PVC every year for us because we want to put another championship up on our wall," said Henniger. "The guys know we've got to take care of business in each and every one of these PVC games."
Frontier, which fell to 7-4 with the loss, was led in scoring by Brookover with 17.
"I thought we played extremely hard last night but we came out tonight with no fire and they shot lights out," said veteran Frontier head coach Roger Kirkpatrick.
"We had a lot of turnovers early on and once they got up it was just an uphill battle."
The Cougars will return home Friday night to host the River Pilots.