BERNE — Berne-Knox-Westerlo boys’ basketball coach Andy Wright stands by his word that his team is on the rise.

The third-year coach set a plan when he first took over as coach and is starting to see some good things, even in a game like Tuesday’s 73-53 loss to Schenectady Christian.
"To outsiders, it looks like a blowout," Wright said. "In fact, I saw many small victories in terms of playing with heart, desire, and determination."

The Bulldogs kept the game close early, trailing by just five points, 16-9, at the end the first quarter.

They stayed that close until Schenectady Christian went on a run late in the second quarter.

The Falcons used a 7-0 run in the last 1:50 of the half to break open a lead that had been just five points.

After a foul shot by BKW’s Josh Stoodley, Schenectady Christian got a foul shot. Then Schenectady Christian’s Jake Bowman made a steal and a fast-break lay-up which he was fouled on and converted the free throw. A foul shot by Olen Henderson and two more foul shots by Jared Kulbako gave the Falcons a 35-23 halftime lead.
"The spurt game"
"They are a team that capitalizes on the spurt game," Wright said. "They have little quick bursts before you know what happened."

BKW never recovered after that burst by Schenectady Christian and tried to play catch-up for the second half.

The Bulldogs trailed, 55-36, at the end of the third quarter and were outscored, 18-17, in the final stanza.
"That’s the league champion and I’ll be blunt about that," Wright said of Schenectady Christian.

The Bulldogs had a bright spot in scoring by senior Andrew Elderd.

Elderd led all scorers with 24 points, getting a lot of points inside against the Falcons’ defense.
"Andrew Elderd shook off a tough night against Duanesburg," Wright said. "He scored close to half our points. When he comes to play, he is very tough to stop."

Schenectady Christian’s Matt McCarty scored 23 points to lead his team. Cordell Galliard, who was in foul trouble in the first half, scored 19 points and Jake Bowman added 14.

Matt Lounsbury was the only other BKW player to reach double figures. He scored 10 points for the Bulldogs.

Lounsbury and Josh Skinner were two of three sophomores who started for the Bulldogs on Tuesday night.
"We have two sophomores that potentially could be three-year varsity starters," Wright said.

Stoodley is also a sophomore and saw a lot of playing time off the bench.

The bench isn’t very deep as there were only three subs Wright could choose from.
"We have a small bench," Wright said. "We had eight guys tonight and we’ll probably be running with nine this year."

Tuesday’s loss drops the Bulldogs to 1-6 so far this season. The lone win came in the first game in the Rensselaer Tournament against Heatly.

The Bulldogs have lost six straight games, including their first four Southern Division Western Athletic Conference games.

Looking ahead

The Bulldogs play at Waterford on Thursday and then play in the St. Johnsville Tournament on Dec. 27 and 28.
"We start in the first round with Herkimer, which is ranked sixth in the state in Class C," Wright said. "And we get to play them. Our program is on the rise and I stand by that statement. The junior varsity is 5-2 and has a lot of promising talent. "Nothing but good things should happen. We just have to shake off the month of December and get going in January and February. We need to stay optimistic and focus on the positives."

Wright said that the Bulldogs are a different team than last year’s and are missing a couple of components that graduated.
"We definitely don’t have the same team dynamic as last year," the coach said. "Matt Mulson is out of our line-up and we lost many of the positive things he did on defense with rebounding, and he was a scorer. He had a lot of strength and that helped us. We’re not anywhere near as strong. He was one of the strongest kids playing. We’ve missed him this year."

But Wright still feels that this team will have the same end result as last year’s version of the Bulldogs.
"We still can finish around .500," Wright said. "It’s going to take some work to achieve it."