MORAN – The wheels on the bus go round and round … unless they fall off.
Unfortunately, the wheels did indeed come off for the Altoona-Midway High School Jets shortly before halftime here Tuesday night. Replacement tires were not available for the remainder of the evening, and as a result the Marmaton Valley Wildcats breezed to an easier-then-expected 71-38 victory in the Three Rivers League matchup.
With the loss, the Altoona-Midway boys fell to 3-4 overall and 1-1 in TRL play. The Lady Jets (0-6, 0-1) were idle Tuesday night, as Marmaton Valley did not have enough girls to field a team this year.
Both AMHS squads are scheduled to return home this Friday, Jan. 17, to begin a four-game homestand. Oswego will invade Milo Peterson Gymnasium on Friday, and the Jets will host the annual Milburn G. Apt Memorial Tournament the following week.
“Tonight was a rough one,” said Altoona-Midway head coach Dave Vance, mentioning that having two consecutive games postponed did not help matters for his squad. “After being off for a week and a half because of the weather … we played like we had been off for a week and a half because of the weather.”
But Vance was also quick to give credit to the Wildcats.
“Marmaton Valley outhustled us, outrebounded us, out-toughed us, outshot us, and played with much more emotion than we did,” Vance noted. “We just did not have any answers – and there were a lot of questions.”
But for a quarter and a half, the game pretty-much resembled what had been expected between two teams that squared off for the Class 1A-Division II sub-state championship a year ago.
Marmaton Valley forged a narrow 13-9 lead after one quarter, and held just a five-point advantage shortly past the midway point of the second period. But the Wildcats went on a torrid 20-5 run for the remainder of the quarter and took a 20-point advantage at intermission.
“We were only down 22 to 17 with three minutes and 40 seconds to go in the second quarter,” Vance said. “By halftime, we were down 42 to 22. And it only got worse in the third quarter.”
Indeed, MVHS extended the lead to 61-30 after three periods and then coasted to the league victory.
“We were beaten in every phase,” Vance added. “Lack of defensive toughness was a major problem, as well as our 21 turnovers. Many of those were unforced errors. We just did not take care of the ball.
We tried multiple defenses, but they appeared to be able to just score at will.
“Our team rebounding and team steals were both down, and those are usually two favorable categories for us,” he continued. “Hopefully it was just being rusty from the week and a half off. We have a very tough opponent Friday night hosting Oswego. Hopefully we can get it turned around and get back in the win column.”
William Stackhouse led the Jets with 17 points and seven rebounds. Kieran Foster tossed in seven points, Aaryn Maple added six, Joey Lamendola and Taj Chism notched three apiece, and Kage Beck finished with two. Chism and Beck each grabbed four caroms.
B. Lawson led Marmaton Valley with 19 points, while Smith and E. Lawson both also reached double figures with 12 and 10, respectively.
Marmaton Valley also claimed a 24-16 victory in a two-quarter junior varsity game. Chance Carter tallied 10 points for AMHS while Maple netted six. But Carter unfortunately got ill just after the game and did not play in the varsity game.
“Chance is usually one of the first players off the bench for us,” Vance said. “We definitely could have used his body in there.”