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BATAVIA – Jax Abalos and 4-1 Batavia continued their hot start to the season with a 40-32 victory Friday, ending Lake Park’s 15-game conference winning streak in a DuKane Conference opener in Batavia.
“We haven’t beat them in two years,” said Abalos, who led the Bulldogs with 15 points on perfect 6-of-6 shooting from the floor. “It feels great … I feel like it was a hard fought win. Lake Park is a pretty good team. They always play hard.”
Lancers coach Billy Pitcher made slowing Abalos down a primary focus of his team’s defensive gameplan, however, the senior forward proved to be too much to handle this time around.
“He’s 6-8 and he’s a great shooter with deep range and high release and then he can elevate over the top of you too,” said Pitcher, describing Abalos, a Cornell University basketball recruit. “We threw three different guys at him. You just can’t give him any daylight.”
Abalos was the star for the Bulldogs early on in an intense, physical ballgame. He went point for point with Lake Park’s dynamic junior combo of Freddy Battaglia and Luca Stella in the first half. The Lancers duo finished the game with a combined 23 points.
“They’re two really good junior guard/forward versatile guys for us,” said Pitcher. “They can do a lot of different things. They can shoot, they can drive, they can post a little bit, and they can handle.”
The Lancer duo helped maintain a Lake Park lead entering the third quarter. But from that point forward, the Bulldogs made a youth movement as Dane Farrar stepped in off the bench and provided energy to help close out the back and forth affair.
“He’s a very talented sophomore,” Batavia coach Jim Nazos said about Farrar. “I think he figured that out tonight, that ‘Hey, I’m here for a reason and I can do this and do it well.’ He’s got that arrogance about him, but sometimes it takes sophomores a little bit to get it.”
Farrar made his impact felt as the action picked up midway through the fourth quarter, finding his stroke from 3-point range. He gave the Bulldogs a brief lead before Lancers senior forward Patrick Swacha responded with a three-ball of his own.
But the Batavia youngster dribbled right back down the court, looked the Lancers defense in the eye, and drained a long three to make it 31-29 Bulldogs.
“It kind of came to me,” said Farrar. “They put their hands down and I shot it … my teammates and the student section in the stands, they all went crazy. So it just really felt good.”
The young guard continued his strong play later on, as he struck from long range again with 3:49 to play, adding a dagger that helped close out the win as he finished the evening with 12 points.
“That’s a scouting fault by us,” added Pitcher. “We didn’t have him scouted … and he got hot and that was really the difference in the game.”
With the victory, the Bulldogs build confidence as they head into the teeth of a difficult conference schedule with lofty aspirations.
“We always set the highest goals for ourselves,” said Abalos. “We want to win the conference every year.”
As for Lake Park (1-4 0-1), they will look to rebound their next time out.
“We really battled,” said Pitcher. “We did some nice things, we rebounded well, we took care of the ball well tonight. They just hit some tough shots on us and we gotta learn from that.”