Frontier League boys basketball: Sackets Harbor, General Brown capture division championships

Earlier on the same court, Sackets Harbor, paced by Austin Griner and Marcus Castine, rolled past Belleville Henderson, 64-31, to secure its second consecutive “D” Division playoff crown.

GENERAL BROWN 64, LOWVILLE 48

Rosbrook scored 14 points and hauled in 15 rebounds as the second-seeded Lions cruised past the top-seeded Red Raiders in the “B” Division final.

General Brown, which led throughout, received plenty of balance as Ryan Hiller contributed 16 points and Luke Heller generated 15 points. With the win, the Lions improved to 16-3 on the season.

“Finally, they take it to us usually,” Rosbrook, a senior forward, said of Lowville. “That was a great win, we finally got them again. We won that first one, that was huge, we had a lot of energy after that. Monday we played them, we lost and we didn’t play our greatest game. They had a good game plan for us and I think the big thing is we just all worked together.”

Rosbrook a senior forward, also reached the 1,000-point plateau for his career at General Brown. He surpassed the mark when he scored on a lay-up early in the third quarter on his team’s first basket of the second half.

Friday’s title game was the second meeting in five days between the two teams, with Lowville recording a home win on Monday night after the Lions won the first meeting back on Jan. 9.

“This is excellent, excellent,” General Brown coach Matt Fiske said. “We needed this one, our last loss to them stung a little bit, but there is such a thing as a good loss. We took that as momentum and we applied it to this game.”

“It feels great after losing to them three times last year,” Hiller, a senior guard, said. “It just shows us what team we are and what we can really do if we really stick to our game plan and really come out and play.”

In this encounter, the Lions raced out to a 9-2 lead, which they expanded to a 20-5 advantage through the first quarter and a built a 30-16 edge heading into halftime.

The Red Raiders drew within 11 points late in the third quarter, but wouldn’t get any closer on the night.

General Brown was able to handle Lowville’s pressing defense early and often and was able to attack the basket, led by Rosbrook.

“Lowville is a phenomenal team, the best press we ever face,” Fiske said. “Every year they have the best press, but we broke the press and we started to run our offense. And I tell these guys all year that when we run our offense and use our strengths, we’re unstoppable, and we beat a good team tonight in a great battle. So, I’m very proud of this team.”

Dalton Myers scored a game-high 23 points to pace Lowville (15-5), which had won the previous four division titles in the playoffs.

Red Raiders’ leading scorer Brody Brown was held to seven points on the night, including only a basket in the first half.

“It was tough from the start,” Lowville coach Zach Shambo said. “They made a lot more scores then we did, I would say that’s the biggest difference. We hung tough, but being down 15 (points) in the first quarter was rough, we were behind the eight-ball.”

Rosbrook, who was selected as the “B” Division’s Most Valuable Player for the season, entered the night nine points shy of the 1,000-point milestone, and now has 1,009 career points in four varsity seasons.

“Tucker’s just been all heart this year, unselfish, he kicks it out to his teammates,” Fiske said. “He knows that there’s a scheme against him every game, knows that he’s going to get hit hard every game and he still plays. He knew last game that he had a couple times where he lost his mentality a little bit, but a complete turnaround this game.”

General Brown’s last playoff division championship came in the 2017 campaign.

“Again, finally,” Rosbrook said. “Ever since ninth grade we’ve been fighting for it, we’ve never been able to get it until this year, so to be able to get that banner, it’s just huge, finally.”

SACKETS HARBOR 64,

BELLEVILLE HENDERSON 31

Griner scored a game-high 19 points and Castine generated 15 points as the top-seeded Patriots cruised past the third-seeded Panthers in the “D” Division final.

The Patriots, who also never trailed in the game, breezed to their second consecutive division playoff championship.

“It feels great, it really does,” Castine said. “It’s not just the ‘oh, I won feeling.’ It’s like we accomplished something after losing our big player last year. And being able to do the same thing we did last year this year, with new players and better and more experienced players, it feels great.”

Sackets Harbor, which is ranked No. 5 in the state in Class D, improved to 19-1 on the season after faring 15-0 in the league during the regular season.

“It feels good, all the hard work that we put in offseason and during the season paid off,” Griner said.

The Patriots’ dominant effort was spearheaded by a deluge of 3-pointers, as it made 12 on the night, including seven in the pivotal first half.

“Obviously we’ve been a really good two-point field goal shooting team this year, we’re really good at attacking the basket,” Sackets Harbor coach Jeff Robbins said. “Tonight they kind of played that zone (defense), they kind of packed it in the middle, we had a lot of open shots. I’m just really proud of the guys just being confident and going out and shooting their shots.”

Griner, a junior guard, drained four 3-pointers, with Jake Peters and Ethan Shi each contributing three.

“I just feel like we were hitting shots because we had high energy the whole game,” said Griner, who was chosen as the “D” Division’s MVP for the season. “Everyone was feeding off each other and our defense turned into offense. ... They were really packing the paint this game, so we just stuck to our 3-point shooting and we’re confident with that.”

Sackets Harbor made quick work of Belleville Henderson once again by building a 15-4 edge through the first quarter, which it expanded to a 31-11 advantage by halftime.

“We got off to a great start,” Castine said. “Our main focus was defense because coach always says defense leads to offense and once we shut teams down, the offense is going to come to us.”

Castine, a sophomore forward, finished with a double-double as he also grabbed 12 rebounds, while Griner also totaled eight rebounds, six assists and three steals.

“It’s great, because we went a while where we weren’t getting these titles,” Robbins said. “For a while at Sackets, if you look up at the banner in our gym, we were winning every year for a stretch. Going back to when I played and when I was assistant coach and when I took over for coach (Charlie) Bridge, we had a track record and then we kind of fell off.

“This group’s brought it back, it started last year and this is a young group, they love to play basketball. They’re getting better and the leadership is really improving and that’s the key.”

Jacob Fargo scored nine points to lead Belleville Henderson (11-9), which also played Sackets Harbor in last year’s final. The Panthers reached this year’s title game by recording a road win at second-seeded Copenhagen on Tuesday night.