By STEVE BRICKLER
IRONDEQUOIT, N.Y. — Trevor Hofer scored 10 of his game-high 25 points in overtime as Penfield outlasted host Irondequoit, 61-55 to improve to 3-0 on the season.
The loss spoiled the debut of Kyle Trevas on the Irondequoit bench. Trevas took the reins from Chris Cardon, the hall-of-fame coach who retired after 38 years.
“They’re really good”, said Penfield Coach Jason Ellis postgame. “You lose a Hall of Fame coach in Chris Cardon and replace him with Kyle Trevas, that’s not fair, but I’ll tell you what, that’s a tough program. They had us on the ropes.”
“What’s important to know is that we have nine guys on this team who played their first varsity game, but they really came to play,” Trevas said. “Guys were a little nervous, but now the nerves are gone, you’ve played in a game and now we can move forward and get better.”
Penfield jumped out to a double-digit lead in the first quarter, opening the game on a 13-2 run highlighted by a pair of threes by junior forward Patrick Emling. The Eagles responded and evened the game at 17 on the first possession of the second quarter. Seniors Quinn VanKerkhove and Isaiah Ballard, the two returning starters from last season’s state finalist team, scored 15 of the 17 points during that span. Penfield answered back, scoring the next eight points to take a 25-17 lead. The Patriots maintained that margin at halftime going to the break with a 31-23 edge.
“We got up early, then they made a gut punch, it was a real good boxing match,” said Ellis.
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After surrendering the first bucket of the second half to Emling, the Eagles went on a 9-0 run, including seven more from Ballard to pull within one at 33-32 midway through the third quarter. Penfield was able to extend its lead back to six on a three pointer by Jacob Natale and a pair of free throws by James Stinebiser. The Eagles finished the quarter on an 8-2 run with VanKerkhove , who scored a team-high 20 points, scoring all eight on 2 triples and a 2-point field goal to tie the score at 40 heading into the fourth stanza.
The Patriots continued to deny the Eagles the lead throughout the beginning half of the fourth quarter, but with the Patriots ahead 45-42, Vankerkhove, who made his presence felt on the defensive end as well with multiple steals, scored back-to-back buckets in the lane to give Irondequoit its first lead of the game at 46-45 with 3:32 to play.
Freshman forward Jackson Green helped the Patriots retake the lead with a free throw and a tip in off of a missed shot following an Irondequoit turnover at midcourt. It was the Eagles turn to reclaim the lead as junior Goti Bandas scored the next four points on a pair of free throws and a layup in transition to put the Eagles up by two. Hofer was able to tie the game at 50 on a two-point field goal setting up the Eagles for a last shot with just under 35 seconds to play. With 3.4 seconds left off of a timeout, VanKerkhove dribbled from right to left across the foul line, but his floater going away from the basket fell short off the front rim.
“To be perfectly honest, we just came up a little short, we had our opportunity to win the game at the end”, said Trevas. ” We ran a play, it was for Isaiah and Quinn and actually Quinn didn’t have a look, it was the right pass and it hit one of our other guys and Isaiah was wide open but we just didn’t get it to him.”
Overtime began with a Hofer three-pointer and a free throw by Emling. The foul that sent Emling to the line was the fifth for Ballard, who was Irondequoit’s main force on the boards along with his contribution of 18 points. Hofer added seven more points from the line in overtime as the Patriots pulled away for the final margin.
“The one thing that separated us at the end was attitude. It’s exactly what we train for, we talked about it all week. We said they’re going to do exactly this. We thought it might be a one or two-point game but we said no matter what, at the end of the day we’re going to stay even keeled”, said Ellis.
“It’s a young group,” Penfield assistant Adam Bendlin said. “We try to stay true to what we do. We’ve been practicing the same things over and over again and we’re really trying to drive home our offense, our defense and working on our pressure. We have a bunch of kids who are really willing to sell themselves out.”
“What won it at the end, we actually got down, we tied it with like a minute and a half left and, we were tracking it, we got four loose balls in the last two minutes of the game diving on the floor,” Ellis said. “That’s a difference maker.”
Aside from VanKerkhove’s 20 and Ballard’s 18 points, the Eagles got scoring contributions from Nikki Yubin with eight points, Bandas with seven and Josh Morse with two.
For the Patriots Emling finished with 13 points, Green had five, Natale and Jake McCarthy had four each, Stinebiser and Christian Zarzycki had three apiece and Kelsey McGraw added two.
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