Sports

By John Bernhardt
Senior Night at a basketball game is about memories. With family and friends on hand, local high school basketball teams pause for a moment to say thanks to the seniors playing their final regular season home basketball game wearing their school’s colors.
Like a yearbook photo op, Senior Night is often about looking back at highlights that have already occurred. Senior Night last week in Roxbury was more about adding to that memory bank.

By John Bernhardt
Margaretville boys’ basketball coach Jeremey Marks knows how it feels to play championship basketball.

Marks was a point guard on a championship Margaretville team in the early 1990s. His brother, Nate, was a starter on the last Margaretville basketball team to win the Delaware League Crossover title in 1995. Marks became a living link between Margaretville’s past and the Blue Devils’ present when his 2013 squad toppled Stamford, 52-42, to win the DL’s Upper Division championship and qualify to play for the league title Friday night at SUNY Delhi.

By John Bernhardt
When the Margaretville girls’ basketball team looks back on the 2012-13 season, no other team will have been as big an obstacle as Hunter-Tannersville. For the third time this season, the Blue Devils found themselves on the short end of a contest with H-T when they fell to the Wildcats, 39-35, last Thursday.

By John Bernhardt
Three teams. Three days. Two nights. That’s the backdrop of an Upper Division basketball drama unique to the Delaware League (DL).

Only three days remain in the DL boys’ regular basketball season, and the Upper Division title is still up for grabs. Three teams; Hunter-Tannersville, Margaretville, and Stamford sit atop the Upper Division standings with identical 9-2 records. With action slated for tonight (Wednesday) and Friday, it’s possible an Upper Division Champion could emerge by the end of the week.

By John Bernhardt
The Margaretville boys’ basketball team didn’t get caught looking ahead to last night’s Delaware League showdown in Tannersville as the Blue Devils scored early and often in defeating Jefferson, 66-29, Friday night. The win was Margaretville’s 12th in a row and allowed the Blue Devils to keep pace with Hunter-Tannersville on top of the Delaware League’s Upper Division standings at 8-1.
Margaretville raced to a 15-point lead in the opening period holding their guests to just three points. The Blue Devils extended that margin to 34-10 by the half.

By John Bernhardt
Slow to start but fast to finish, the Margaretville girls’ basketball team won two contests on the road last week to run its win streak to three games.

The Blue Devils followed the same script in all three contests; falling behind early, scrambling to get back in the game, and then finishing strong to secure the victory. A 17-7 final period helped Margaretville down Jefferson, 35-27, on Thursday after toppling Andes, 62-50, earlier in the week.

By John Bernhardt
The Margaretville Blue Devils knew Roscoe guards Rob Taurino and Marc Rosario could wheel and deal in the open court. Taurino and Rosario had teamed with the five Blue Devil starters as part of a Margaretville AAU team last spring.

The Blue Devils reveled then when Taurino went on a “crazy” scoring run or Rosario pulled a rebound off the defensive boards and went coast to coast for a lay-up. But, Saturday in Downsville, the Blue Devils found themselves plotting to find a way to slow down Roscoe’s offensive duo.

Roscoe in front

By John Bernhardt
Senior Raeann Bond had a hand in a dozen Blue Devil second-half points to help Margaretville come from behind to topple Roxbury, 35-28, in a game played in Roxbury on Friday.
Bond helped her team erase a four-point deficit, scoring all six of her points in the third quarter, then dished out assists that resulted in six more Blue Devil points as Margaretville pulled away down the homestretch.

Scoring drought

By John Bernhardt
In almost every game this winter, the Margaretville girls’ basketball team has shown flashes of brilliance. Sustaining that level of play has proved to be the Blue Devils’ challenge. Last week on their home court, Margaretville put together a solid effort and stunned previously undefeated Davenport, 43-39.

By John Bernhardt
The Margaretville Blue Devils found themselves at the top of the Delaware League’s Upper Division Friday night after a 48-42 win on the road in Stamford.

The win concluded a harrowing week of basketball that saw the Blue Devils survive a scare with an overtime win in Davenport and then come from behind in the second half to down Stamford.