WAXHAW — The Sun Valley High boys basketball team opened the season with a 79-49 road win against Cuthbertson (1-1) on Monday evening.

“I think we showed spurts of the team that we believe we can become,” SV coach Keith Mason said. “And then we showed spurts that maybe we’re not as good as we think we are yet.”

Shawn Stewart led the Spartans with 24 points, seven rebounds and three assists, while the relentless Luke Maynor recorded a double-double with 21 points and 10 rebounds.

“Luke (Maynor) brings a lot of energy to us,” Mason said. “When [Maynor] plays strong, we feed off of that and other people start stepping their game up also to match that intensity ...”

Sun Valley held Cuthbertson’s go-to scorer, Mike Cuthbertson, to 11 points. The 6-foot-5 junior center was a presence on defense, blocking four shots in the first half.

“We knew that Mike (Cuthbertson) could do some damage on the inside, but we were going to live with that, more so than letting them get off on 3-point shots,” Mason said.

Mike Cuthbertson added six rebounds, but Sun Valley out-rebounded the Cavaliers 33-29.

The Cavaliers trailed 26-21 in the second half, but couldn’t narrow the gap as the Spartans went on a 12-5 run to close out the half, finishing with a Maynor tear-drop off a steal that beat the buzzer.

Sun Valley started the second half even stronger with an 11-0 run that pushed the lead to 49-26.

The Cavaliers had no answer for the balanced Spartans, who had four starters in double figures and a fifth starter with nine points.

Sun Valley is in its first season as a 4A school, and the schedule is tougher.

“Having those non-conference games with those 4A schools will get us prepared for the playoffs,” Mason said.

In their first season in the Southern Carolina 3A/4A Conference, Mason has high expectations for his Spartans.

“We want to win the conference, there’s no doubt about that,” Mason said. “The football season kind of set the tone when you have six teams in the conference and four teams share the conference championship – that just goes to show how tough our conference is.

“Every game means everything and there’s no gimmies in our conference.”

Sun Valley will attempt to go 2-0 when the Spartans host East Mecklenburg tonight. Mason, in his third year at SV, coached at East before coming to Sun Valley.

SV girls cruise

The Sun Valley girls team routed Cuthbertson (0-2) 59-23.

Jordyn Daniel led the way for Sun Valley with 16 points and 12 rebounds, Tashaun Stewart scored 12 points and four rebounds and Stephanie Taylor added 10 points and seven rebounds.

Two freshman led the Cavaliers in scoring and rebounding – Sydney Sebastian with 12 points and Emily Barfield with seven rebounds.

As a first-year program, Cuthbertson coach David Daniels is hoping to build around these two young players.

“They’re the future of this program right now,” Daniels said. “Kathleen Cashman is my other freshman and she’s surprised me. Those three I’m really building a program around down the road.”

Daniels is somewhat familiar with coaching a new program, as he was with the Porter Ridge program during their second season.

“To see what those kids did from their freshman year to their senior season last year and go from four wins their first year to 25-3 last year and conference champions, that’s what I want to do,” he said. “That’s my goal in this building with this program.”