Cortland Standard .net

Say this for Jack Rauch: he does his best work when it matters most.
The senior forward poured in a career-high 33 points — including four 3-pointers, three in the first quarter — to lead the visiting Bishop Ludden boys’ basketball team to a 73-68 win over Cortland High Tuesday night.
His previous personal-best had come all of four days earlier after scoring a then career-high 31 points against Jamesville-DeWitt in a 64-52 win last Friday night.
Cortland is now 8-2 in the OHSL Freedom National Division (14-4 overall), a game behind J-D at 9-1 (13-5 overall). The Purple Tigers head north to face the Red Rams Friday in both teams’ regular-season finale, with a win giving coach Jeremy Milligan’s squad the title via the head-to-head result.
“We dug ourselves a hole in the first quarter,” Milligan said, his team down 23-11 after the first eight minutes as Rauch scored 11 points himself, including the trio of treys. “We were concerned about the high-low of Rauch and (fellow senior forward) Zach Walser. Rauch started out strong and put the team on his back, especially when Walser injured his ankle and had to sit out quite a bit of the second quarter.”
The Gaelic Knights, now 7-0 in OHSL Freedom American play and 16-2 overall, maintained that 12-point cushion at halftime, Rauch with 16 points and Walser with 10 of the 12 he scored on the night.
The Purple Tigers stormed back in the third quarter, largely behind the 10 points senior point guard Sage Brown scored in that eighth-minute stretch. They trailed 44-34 before storming back to grab a 46-45 lead late in the stanza, only to see Ludden grab the lead right back and never trail thereafter. The winners were up 49-48 at the end of the third and built on that throughout the fourth, in which they had a 24-20 scoring advantage that was built largely on 15 points from Rauch.
“It was a gritty performance and an outstanding team effort,” Milligan said in assessing his team’s performance. “I don’t know if Nick Craig, Chris Luke and Sage could play any better. We ran into a very good team, with a a senior leader who took the game over and found ways to score. I was also pleased with the play of Justin Prentice off the bench.”
Brown led Cortland with 23 points and also had five rebounds, three assists and three deflections. Craig, a junior guard finished with 20 points, nine assists and four rebounds, while junior center Luke had 16 points and three blocked shots.
Freshman guard Mike Adams-Woods helped pick up the slack for Ludden when Walser was forced to sit out and finished with 18 points, 14 of those in the second half. The Gaelic Knights had a 23-21 rebounding advantage and went 26-for-50 (52 percent) from the field to Cortland’s 24-for-39 (62 percent).
CORTLAND JVs lost to Bishop Ludden 50-44, the visitors rallying from a 25-16 halftime deficit with a 16-3 third-quarter edge to take the lead and hold on in the fourth. Sophomore forward Duff Steve had a game-high 21 points and sophomore guard Gary Reagan added 14 for the Purple Tigers (5-5, 10-7), who close out their season Friday at J-D. E.J. Zawadski had 14 points and Quran McIntyre 11 for the Gaelic Knights.