Ausable Valley Pulls Away From Lisbon Boys

BY DAVE SHEA

LISBON - After losing the lead to a Lisbon surge late in the second quarter, visiting Ausable Valley of Section 7 used an explosive spurt to gain a 31-22 halftime lead in Monday's nonleague game.

The Patriots did an even better job defending and expanding the lead in the second half pulling away to a 73-45 nonleague victory which was originally scheduled to be played at North Country Community College on Saturday. The 5-3 Patriots handed 9-3 Lisbon its first nonleague loss after five straight wins and finished with a 42-23 advantage in the second half.

Led by the combination of muscular forward Nate Doner with 14 points and 12 rebounds and slender 6-3 center Carter Maitzel with 14 points, 11 rebounds and seven assists AV consistently limited Lisbon to one shot per possession and delivered a steady stream of interior scoring.

Guard Luis Perez used his penetrating decisions and finishing ability on the break to score a game-high 21 points with 14 in the first half for 8-3 Class C Ausable Valley. Eli Douglas tallied 11 points with four steals

"We are a young team but we have worked very hard at consistency. We have had a good year in our league. Our three losses have come against ranked B and C teams," said AV Coach James Douglass.

Kaiden Mussen and Karter Jordan scored 12 and 11 points leading Lisbon and Tegan Jordan netted seven. Other scoring came from: Jack LaRock (5), Greg Wood (3), Ethan Martin (3) and Jayden Carr (4).

"Ausable Valley is a very solid team and we didn't play defense well enough against them," said Lisbon Coach Bob Jordan.

"We didn't have a lot of unforced turnovers but we had too many turnovers which we could have avoided if we passed the ball better."

Lisbon's Greg Wood drives toward the goal against an Ausable Valley defender in Monday's game.