Burnt Hills-Ballston Lake vs. Shenendehowa: Plainsmen spoil Dudas debut

It’s been six years since George Dudas last coached a boys’ basketball team. And though Dudas said the game hasn’t changed in that time, it was a tough night to talk about it.

Shenendehowa sprinted out to a 14-4 lead, and held Burnt Hills-Ballston Lake scoreless for more than eight minutes in the first half as the Plainsmen charged to a 68-33 Suburban Council victory over the Spartans in Dudas’ debut Tuesday night.

Dudas, coming off a highly successful run coaching the Burnt Hills girls’ basketball team, last coached boys six years ago at Averill Park, and previously coached at Mechanicville.

His Spartans ran into an insurmountable combination of a deep and up-tempo Plainsmen team that is already off to a 4-0 start and a roster depleted by Burnt Hills’ run to the state football finals 10 days ago — almost half of its roster played football, including veteran guard Paul Layton, the Spartans’ quarterback who is nursing a broken tailbone and did not play Tuesday.

“We know this, so we wanted to up the tempo of the game and get them running,” Shen coach Tony Dzikas said. “Playing them the second time around is going to be a different story.”

The Plainsmen earned their second victory in the Suburban Council with a balanced effort. Dan Lee hit five of seven three-pointers and scored 17 points. Doug Milvaney scored 12 points. Matt Miner scored eight points with six steals, four

assists and six rebounds. Ryan Murphy had six boards. Matt Lee had four assists. And Manny Hernandez blocked five shots.

“We knew we had a lot of potential at the beginning of the season,” Milvaney said. “We’ve got a lot of guys that can score. I feel like we’re one of the deeper teams in the Suburban Council. We like to rotate nine, 10 guys in, and everyone go hard.”

Mike Pelletier led Burnt Hills with eight points, six in the first half.

The Plainsmen controlled the game from the outset, with Shen scoring after steals by Milvaney and Miner in the final 1:15 of the first quarter to push its lead to 14-4.

The Plainsmen stretched that to

21-4 on Dan Lee’s open three-pointer from the right with 4:40 to go in the first half.

By the time the Spartans’ Pelletier scored underneath at the four-minute mark to make it 21-6, Shen had completed a 13-0 run, holding Burnt Hills scoreless for 8:03.

Dan Lee hit two more three-pointers from the left corner in a span of 27 seconds, the second one giving Shen a 27-8 lead with 2:17 remaining in the half. The Plainsmen entered halftime with a 29-12 advantage.

“Everyone on our team can pretty much shoot the outside shot — we’ve got kids that can shoot, and that opens up the inside for our post guys,” Milvaney said. “We have a lot of different options. We’re not a one-dimensional team. We can’t just shoot jump shots. We can drive to the hoop, so that gives us balance, and that helps us a lot.”

Burnt Hills twice cut Shenendehowa’s lead to 13 points in the third quarter, getting to within 34-21 on Hayden Skalski’s layup after he pulled down an offensive rebound. The Spartans followed that with a steal by Zach Morton at the other end, but could not convert and trim it further.

Instead, Shen stole the ball right back, leading to a fast-break three-point play by Milvaney. That began an 11-0 run for the Plainsmen, who led, 45-21, on a pair of free throws by Miner with 45.4 seconds remaining in the third quarter.

Burnt Hills’ Kraig Page collected a loose ball and fed Bret Dennis, who sank a three-pointer with one second to go in the quarter to cut the lead to 45-24. But the Spartans would get no closer than 20 points the rest of the way, when Conor Maloney converted a three-point play 42 seconds into the fourth quarter to make it 51-31.

From there, Miner hit one foul shot and Jake LaPan sank an off-balance three-pointer.

BURNT HILLS-BALLSTON LAKE

Pelletier 3-2-8, Schreiner 1-0-2, Morton

1-2-4, Skalski 2-0-4, Kane 1-0-3, Maloney

2-1-5, Dennis 1-0-3, Meyers 1-0-2, Himmelwright 1-0-2. Totals: 13-5-33.

SHENENDEHOWA

Milvaney 5-2-12, M. Lee 2-0-6, Murphy 0-0-0, Miner 2-4-8, Reyes 0-0-0, LaPan 3-0-7, D. Lee 5-2-17, Hughes 2-0-5, Barnett 2-0-4, Hernandez 2-0-5, Koopman 2-0-4. Totals: 25-8-68.

BH-BL 4 8 12 9 — 33

Shenendehowa 16 13 16 23 — 68

Three-point goals: Kane, Dennis, M. Lee 2, LaPan, D. Lee 5, Hughes, Hernandez.