ACM dominates defensively in 86-67 win over Niagara County

Nov. 11—CUMBERLAND — Allegany College of Maryland opened the Personal Best Athletics Classic with a 86-67 win over Niagara (N.Y.) County on Friday at Bob Kirk Arena.

"I thought we played extremely hard and I thought every guy bought into what we were trying to do conceptually," ACM head coach Tommie Reams said. "Offensively at times, we got out of rhythm. But we were able to get back into our offensive sets. Defensively, I thought the guys played their rear ends off."

The Trojans (3-0) shut down the NJCAA Division II No. 3 ranked Thunderwolves (3-1) with a dominant defensive performance.

Entering Friday's game, Niagara County had four players shooting over 40% from beyond the arc. The Trojans held the Thunderwolves to 3 of 14 from deep in the first half.

"When you're able to take away some of the best things they do, it really gives you that mental edge to go out and finish down the stretch," Reams said.

It started with relentless hustle for loose balls and 50/50 balls, led by Cam Brown. He had three rebounds and a steal, but also dove for several loose balls.

"Defensively, he hounded two of their best shooters all night," Reams said. " He made their world really tough. Because of that, they couldn't get into their offensive sets. All of a sudden, we're turning them over and he's leading the charge on that."

Allegany opened the game on a 10-3 run led by Brian Ayafor. He scored five points in the first five minutes and scored nine of his 11 points in the first half.

"I thought Brian getting going early was huge for us," Reams said. "Him getting down hill to the rim allowed our shooters to get open. That really let us break that game open quickly."

After Navari Sandy hit a 3 for Niagara about 1:30 into the game, the Trojans scored 17 unanswered and led 18-5.

"I thought the concept of going defense to offense is part of that," Reams said. "We knew they were a really good shooting team. We did a lot of things defensively to stop them from getting out into transition. That led to a lot of easy points in the first half."

It took until the 12:15 mark in the half for the Thunderwolves to score when Jalen Duff hit a layup.

Lamont Jones set up Jason Thomas for a 3-pointer to put the Trojans up 20-5, but Niagara responded with 11 unanswered points to make it a four-point game.

Allegany committed five turnovers including two offensive fouls that helped the Thunderwolves get back into the game.

"We turned the ball over, we started to miss shots we'd been making in the first half," Reams said. "We settled for a couple bad shots, all of a sudden the offense dries up."

The Trojans responded with a 12-6 run to push the lead to 32-22. It was capped off by a steal by Ron Brown who set up Tyson Oghene for a dunk with about 4:30 left.

"The momentum in that play is huge," Reams said. "We let the lead evaporate, we're finally starting to extend it again. We really sucked the wind out of their sails. You could see their energy change, and then we close out the half on a high note because of it."

Allegany took a 42-28 lead into halftime.

After only making one 3-pointer in the first half, Oghene got hot in the second half. He hit three triples and scored 15 second-half points.

"Going into halftime, we made some adjustments schematically to try and get him some touches," Reams said. "We get him a couple easy touches early, we get the lid off and as we started turning them over, our guys were burying shots."

The Trojans took its biggest lead of the game at 60-40 with 13 minutes left after Aaron Lewis recorded a steal. Jones dished it to Thomas who hit a stepback 3-pointer.

The final 15 minutes featured a lot of fouls and a lot of free throws. Both teams committed eight fouls that resulted in 21 combined free throws.

Reams said before the game he wanted to see where the team's chemistry was at this weekend. He was pleased with how it looked on Friday.

"Day one's an A," he said. "I thought we looked like we cared about each other. Our guys were willing to play the game for each other, not for themselves. Our guys were really buying into the bond and concepts we preach. I couldn't be more proud of them because of that."

Oghene led all scorers with 27 points, adding four rebounds, three assists and three steals.

Ron Brown scored 18 points with three assists and three steals.

Ayafor added 11 points with nine rebounds. Cam Brown scored 10 points with five rebounds, five assists and two steals.

"The balanced scoring attack makes us a little different than teams I've had in the past," Reams said. "We've always been a little top heavy scoring the ball. Don't get me wrong, this team has a couple guys that can really fill it up. But we can go to the bench and get some scoring from our other guards."

Julian Cunningham led Niagara with 13 points. Trayvon Gifford added 12 while Sandy, Duff and Jimmy Green each scored eight.

Allegany continues the Personal Best Classic on Saturday with a matchup against Harford at 7 p.m. It's the second of three games in three days against opponents either currently ranked, or teams coming off winning records last season.

"Continued continuity, we saw what worked tonight," Reams said of what he hopes to see this weekend. "Defensively, continued high intensity effort. I'd love to see us get better on the glass. We joke within our coaches room, you can always pass too much, shoot too much, turnover too much. You can never defend or rebound too much."

Jordan Kendall is a Sports Writer for the Cumberland Times-News. Email him with scores and story suggestions at jkendall@times-news.com.