Lake Placid’s Seb Cecunjanin, right, fights for the ball with Johnsburg/Minerva’s Nick Sauer-Jones on Jan. 30. (News photo — Parker O’Brien)

LAKE PLACID — The Lake Placid boys basketball team snapped a three-game losing skid on Tuesday, Jan. 30 after topping the Johnsburg/Minerva Irish Jaguars 49-26 on the Blue Bombers’ home court.

Seb Cecunjanin led all scorers with 22 points, which included two 3-point shots. Owen Hayes also had a solid outing for the Blue Bombers, recording nine points in the win.

“Owen is starting to go the basket well and that was one focus we had at the beginning of the year with him,” Lake Placid’s head coach Brian Brandes said. “He’s getting fairly proficient at that.”

Talon Jordon contributed to the Blue Bombers’ effort with eight points, while Colton Kondrat and Caleb Wylie had three points each — both coming off a 3-point shot. Jarett Mihill and Phoneix Ordway each had two points. The win improved the team’s overall record to 2-9 overall. Lake Placid previously defeated Willsboro on Jan. 18.

The Blue Bombers got off to a rocky start on Tuesday. The Irish Jaguars led by two points after the opening quarter. Lake Placid outscored Johnsburg/Minerva 10-0 in the second quarter and were never really threatened the remainder of the way.

Brandes said his team’s defense stepped up after the first quarter and propelled them to a win.

“We started out in a zone and when switched to man-to-man, that’s when we held them in the second quarter and our offense picked up in the last quarter and put it away,” he said. “All of our kids did a great job effort-wise. They started to go to the basket and took the shots they were supposed to take.

“They just started thinking a bit more and things gelled,” Brandes added. “It happens. In the first quarter, they didn’t gel and they did the rest of the game.”

Lake Placid outscored Johnsburg/Minerva 30-15 in the second half, which included a 20-6 run by the Blue Bombers in the final quarter. Brandes praised Brendan Murphy’s defensive performance during that stretch.

“When he got in there toward the end — we’ve been working on man-to-man defense — he started hedging very nicely,” he said, “and Jarrett Mihill’s defense was top-notch.”