MILLBURY — Elmwood boy’s basketball was able to defeat Lake 63-55 Tuesday night thanks to a game-high 35
points from junior Bryce Reynolds.
The victory gives Elmwood its first league win and a second win in a row, pushing them to 3-6 overall and
1-3 in the NBC. The Lake boys are now the only team in the NBC without a conference win, falling to 3-7
overall and 0-4 in the NBC.
Reynolds was hot out of the gate, scoring seven of the nine Elmwood points in the first quarter to give
the Royals a 9-7 lead after one quarter of play.
In the second quarter, the Flyers would start to hit their groove as junior forward Cam Hoffman scored
the final four points of the half to give them a 27-23 lead. Reynolds was able to keep Elmwood in it,
getting 10 more points in the quarter to push his total to 17 at the half.
The second half was all Elmwood. Reynolds continued to put on a scoring clinic in the third quarter,
scoring 14 points to put his total to 31 for the game and push Elmwood’s lead to 45-38, after being down
by three at halftime.
Reynolds did it from everywhere. He had four threes on the night, and he continuously was able to get
inside the lane for easy buckets.
“We were able to get him in a lot of post-iso situations early. He caught the defender sleeping with
their hand down a couple of times and was able to get himself going in that first quarter, when really
we were struggling on the offensive end of the floor. He was kind of able to keep us afloat,” Elmwood
head coach Ty Traxler said.
“With a kid like Reynolds he runs off screens really well. They have three guys down on the offensive end
that their job is to set screens for him and get him open. We were chasing all night trying to keep up
with him, in the first half we did a great job of keeping a hand in his face. In the second half we did
not,” Lake head coach Jeff Hoffman said.
The Flyers played well in spite of Reynolds’s great first half showing. In the second half, the shots
just wouldn’t fall.
“It came down to they made shots and we didn’t. They had a couple of guys that were making some big shots
and in the second half we didn’t really make any shots,” Hoffman said.
In the fourth quarter the Royals would take their lead to as much as 12. This was in large part due to
good play from freshman point guard Kade Lentz who ended the game with 17 points.
“We faced the unfortunate situation of losing our starting senior point guard Terrell Lawson two weeks
before the season. Kade was supposed to be our starting wing and now he’s our primary ball handler and
seniors are beating on him every night. But he just continues to respond and he’s confident with the
ball in his hands even though physically he may not be quite ready as a freshman yet,” Traxler said.
For the Flyers it was senior transfer student Jalen Smith who would lead the the team with a
double-double on the nigh,t as notching 19 points and 11 rebounds. Two others would find their way into
double digit scoring for the Flyers, with Hoffman finishing with 15 points and eight rebounds and senior
Tyler Saffran with 11.
Next up for the Flyers will be an away contest on Saturday with Eastwood. The Royals will also be in
action on Saturday hosting Otsego.
