BEACON FALLS — The Woodland boys got the season off to a sluggish start on Tuesday night.
It took the Hawks almost the entire first quarter to get their first basket, and by the time Dylan Sender (10 points) got one to go in with 20 seconds left the Hawks trailed St. Paul, 15-2.
Woodland continued to struggle on offense in the second quarter and headed into halftime down 31-7. The Hawks showed more grit in the second half, but St. Paul took home a 52-32 win.
“We lacked effort in the first half,” Woodland head coach Tom Hunt said. “We had a one-sided conversation regarding that lack of effort at halftime. Some guys got minutes because they were returning players but going forward minutes are going to have to be earned.”
The Woodland (0-1) offense looked more cohesive in the second half, especially in the third quarter as the Hawks tied the Falcons (1-0) 15-15 in the stanza to make it a 46-21 game heading into the final eight minutes.
The Hawks came out and scored the first bucket of the third quarter when Alex Rindos (4 points, 4 rebounds, 2 blocks) dropped in a baseline drive off an assist from Justin Marks (4 assists).
Woodland went on an 8-2 run midway through the quarter beginning with Zack Bedryczuk feeding Ryan Swanson (6 points) on an inbounds play. Brendan Rowley (8 points) crashed the boards and threw in a put-back before hitting a shot in the lane.
“I thought Ryan did a good job and set the tone as to how hard we needed to play especially at the end of the third quarter,” Hunt said. “The guys started to see what we needed to be doing. Brendan gave us a good effort on the boards, and even if we didn’t play any better in the second half we played a lot harder.”
Rich Rousseau (4 rebounds, 1 block) ripped down a rebound and fed the ball down court to Rowley who buried a 3-pointer to start the fourth quarter. Zach Marquis and Kyle Macek came on to shore up the defense as the Hawks held the Falcons to just six points in the final quarter.
Rindos worked a perfect back door play with Sender putting it in off the glass at the two minute mark. Rindos then drained a pair of free throws at the line, and the Woodland offense started to come together as the Hawks outscored St. Paul 25-21 in the second half.
“Offensively we have some work to do,” Hunt said. “Starting a sophomore Justin Marks at point guard we knew there would be some growing pains. The idea is to be better towards the end of the season than we are right now.”
The Hawks will visit Seymour on Thursday and host Ansonia on Dec. 27.
