By Keith Harrington
What a difference 24 hours can make. One night after falling to Class A South High in their non-league season opener, the Granville boys basketball team seemed to morph into.....well a typical Golden Horde team.
Granville put the rest of the Adirondack League on notice as they rolled over defending champion Argyle 82-45 at the Granville Central School Gym.
Caleb Nelson recorded his second 30 plus point game in as many nights, leading the Golden Horde with 32. Matthew Barlow came off the bench to fire in 17 points, 10 of which came in the second quarter.
"We were able to get in the gym today at 3:30 and do a nice hour walk through. Go over X's and O's and stuff. I just told them everything we talked about. The scouting report. What we needed to do. We did it. There were no mistakes it was a perfect game," Granville coach Justin Nassivera explained.
Argyle matched the Golden Horde basket for basket early, but an 11-3 run to close the opening stanza gave Granville a 20-11 lead.
The Golden Horde gradually pulled away from there. Barlow entered the fray and promptly hit a pair of buckets to make it 24-13. The dagger came when Barlow hit back-to-back treys and Caleb Nelson connected on another to extend the Granville advantage to 33-15. The Scots never got closer than 15 the remainder of the night.
Granville led 61-39 after three quarters and used a 21-6 edge in the fourth to close the deal.
A key improvement for the Golden Horde in their second outing was a more balanced offensive attack. After Caleb Nelson scored 33 of the teams's 50 points in the opener, he got much more help in this game.
"We talk about every day in practice to be ready for your role. Look at Matthew Barlow and RJ Monger. They played four minutes last night. They came off the bench tonight. Matthew hit some shots in the first half. RJ hit a three and had a nice layup in the fourth quarter," Nassivera said. "Those guys stayed ready and that's what they have to do. To get us more balance and get some pressure off of Caleb."
Monger finished with nine points for the Golden Horde. Cody Nelson and Will Jennings added eight apiece.
"We haven't had size the last couple years," Nassivera added. "Having Will makes a difference. Especially against a team like that, that's not a strong rebounding team. Will was active inside. Had a couple of nice buckets inside. When we can take the pressure off Caleb it makes a difference and we're tough to guard."
Hunter Ingram did his best to key the Scots competitive. Ingram scoed 35 of the 45 Argyle points.
Granville is now 1-0, 1-1. Argyle is 0-1, 0-3.
