The Thunderbirds drew up a play to take the lead, but the Marauders foiled the attempt and an Earl Stewart rebound led to a full-court pass to Carlito Villafane who put in an easy layup to help seal the Marauders’ eventual 70-63 victory and give them their first league win in the last two seasons.

The Thunderbirds got off to a hot start, powered by Nate Adams, who in his second game since returning from injury scored 9 point in the first quarter.

“He was out for the first five games,” Chautauqua Lake head coach Alex Reyda said. “We just got him back at Nichols and he’s a team leader. He’s been playing varsity since his sophomore year, so he’s needed. We were trying to improve without him, but getting him helps. He gets a lot of rebounds and he can score inside.”

Chautauqua Lake established a 10-point lead after going on a 10-point run, making the score 16-6 early in the first and Dunkirk took a well needed timeout to solve the defensive issues. After the timeout, the Marauders outscored the Thunderbirds in the quarter, but still trailed 20-14 after one.

The Marauders defensive adjustments were clear after the timeout as they did a much better job covering Adams.

“We had the brothers of Davon Kubasik and Donny Lockett, they guarded Adams the entire game,” Dunkirk head coach Luke Gullo said about his defensive game plan. “It was their job… nothing else mattered, but trying to make his job a little bit harder. They rose to the challenge and hats off to them.”

While the Marauders defense started to lock it down, the offense began to start hitting shots that were missed earlier. Dunkirk’s offensive outburst was powered by Stewart.

Earl Stewart hit the first two shots of the second quarter for the Marauders from downtown to get within two points, 22-20. As Stewart began to hit his shots, the rest of Marauders began to heat up as Peter Paredes, Devon Kubasik and Villafane all hit shots from downtown in the quarter.

At the end of the half Dunkirk had a narrow lead, 37-36, despite trailing by double-digits halfway through the first quarter.

The Marauders maintained the momentum in the second half as they came out scoring a quick two baskets to go up, 41-36, and forced a Chautauqua Lake timeout. The timeout saw Adams get back on the scoresheet, but it did not slow down the Marauders as Stewart and Couser hit quick back-to-back treys off T’Bird turnovers to get another timeout from the Thunderbirds.

After the second timeout, it appeared the Thunderbirds settled down a little bit as they only let the Marauders’ lead get to a maximum of 10 at 50-40. At that point, Chautauqua Lake began to chip away at the Dunkirk lead.

Dunkirk held a five point lead headed into the fourth quarter, 53-48.

In the fourth quarter, Chautauqua Lake finally saw Luke Waters step up and hit two big 3-pointers as they closed the deficit.

“Our record doesn’t really speak to their effort,” Reyda said. “They don’t give up on the court. They always play hard until the end, so I am proud of them for that.”

The Thunderbirds got the deficit to one with 47 seconds left in the defensive fourth quarter, 64-63, and called a timeout to draw up a play to try and take back the lead.

The Thunderbirds could not seal the deal and the always reliable Stewart was there to come up with the rebound and send a full court pass to Villafane that ultimately sealed the game and gave Dunkirk its first league win in two seasons.

Stewart led the Marauders with 24 points, Villafane added 13, Christian Ortiz had 12 and Paredes scored 11.

The T’Birds effort was led by Adams with 21 points and 12 rebounds for a double-double and Waters had 12 points.