by Ken Brown
CRAFTSBURY – The young Craftsbury Academy (CA) boys’ basketball team struggled last week against the top teams in the Mountain league, dropping games to Blue Mountain, Danville, and Christ Covenant.
Evan Dennis hit a pair of threes on his way to a 23 point night to lead Blue Mountain to a convincing 83-27 road win over the Chargers last Tuesday. Kason Blood also connected from long range twice to chip in with 14 points and Ricky Fennimore added 12. Dylan Washer led CA with 12 points and Mark Gueboura chipped in with five in the loss. Blue Mountain improved to 6-2 on the season as they aim to defend their Division IV state title this coming March.
Andrew Joncas poured in a season-high 35 points to lead Danville to a dominant 88-37 home win over the Chargers last Thursday. Joncas scored 26 first-half points, connecting on five 3-pointers to lead the Bears to a commanding 55-14 lead at the break. Alijah Andrews added eight points and Christian Young and Anthony Raymond combined for 14 more as they improved to 6-3 on the season. Dylan Washer paced the Chargers with 18 points and freshman Landon Miller added 10 points of his own, including a pair from long range.
Nathan Mulligan pumped in 24 points to lead Christ Covenant to a hard fought 60-43 home win over CA over the weekend. Dylan Washer kept the Chargers within one after three quarters with a team-high 23 points. Miller continued his strong play with a season-high 14 and Sterling Blodgett added six in the loss.
“It was a rough start to the game for us and they came out and jumped on us early. Unfortunately we lost Evan Lemare to a season-ending wrist injury, but the guys did a great job of rallying with a great third quarter. Turnovers and missed baskets finished us off down the stretch. The guys did a great job of rebounding and getting us second and third chance looks on multiple possessions. It was one of our better shooting nights from the perimeter and we’ll look to continue to work on balancing out our scoring attack this week,” said head coach Sean Ryan.
The schedule doesn’t get any easier for the Chargers this week as division III Oxbow rolls into town on Wednesday, followed by a clash with Twinfield-Cabot on Friday.