As a freshman call-up during his freshman year, the Hillbillies featured Nick Whitfield.

As a sophomore, Ethan Fry and Jay Hawk handled the bulk of Fredonia’s scoring opportunities.

And last year, Davion White and Mike Hahn were the Hillbillies’ leading scorers.

Now, it’s up to Putney to put the ball in the hoop.

Fredonia’s Colin Luce puts up a shot over Frewsburg’s Kael Collver during the opening game of the Martin Luther King Jr. Day CCAA Showcase on Monday at Jamestown Community College. OBSERVER Photo by Matt Spielman

The senior guard took a big step toward doing that with more consistency Monday afternoon at Jamestown Community College.

Putney scored a career-high 29 points, including five 3-pointers, as Fredonia beat Frewsburg 68-39 in the opening game of the Martin Luther King Jr. Day CCAA Showcase inside the Physical Education Complex.

“He’s been doing a lot better job of not being just that single threat from the outside,” Fredonia head coach Nick Bertrando said of Putney. “He’s able to put it on the deck, he got to the free-throw line today. I wanna say he had three or four field goals from inside the paint today.”

Putney struck early and often against the Bears, hitting a trio of 3-pointers in the opening quarter as the Hillbillies (6-6) took a 23-13 lead.

“I’m proud of the entire team, but especially for the six who just got after it today and set the tone early,” Bertrando said. “They were able to continue that for 32 minutes.”

Frewsburg (3-8) limited Putney to just a pair of free throws in the next eight minutes, but couldn’t make up any ground itself, scoring just 7 second-quarter points to find itself trailing 34-20 at halftime.

“We didn’t get out to shooters and that hurt us at the start. … The last 10 minutes of the first half we held them to 11 points,” Frewsburg head coach Kyle Nelson said. “Our defense was good, we got out to shooters and contested shots.”

Again, after the break, Putney found his scoring touch, hitting his final two 3-pointers en route to a 10-point third quarter as the Hillbillies’ lead grew to 18.

“I thought we did a really nice job of moving the ball, sharing the ball, making the extra pass,” Bertrando said, “which I think got a lot of guys open opportunities.”

While Putney was heating up from outside and finding a few buckets inside the paint, junior Colin Luce added 23 points of his own as he continued to grow into what Bertrando hopes is a second scoring option after Putney.

“Ashton is a phenomenal shooter, we knew that going in. We didn’t want to let him get going. Unfortunately, he hit his first 3 and got hot,” Nelson said. ” … We let him get going and we can’t do that. Once he starts hitting shots, it trickles down to the other guys.”

Frewsburg struggled to consistently find offense all afternoon. The Bears’ best looks came when they got the ball into Kael Collver in the high post, but that didn’t happen nearly often enough. Collver, a 6-foot-4 senior, finished with a team-high 14 points to go along with six rebounds, three assists and two blocked shots.

“We knew we wanted to get it into the middle, especially against their zone,” Nelson said. “When they took that away, we turned the ball over a little too much. We didn’t hit enough shots down the line.”

“We knew with their personnel that they had some really strong inside presence,” Bertrando said. “In order for us to have some success today, we needed to try to negate that as best as possible.”

Frewsburg will look to get back into the win column when it hosts Chautauqua-Cattaraugus Athletic Association Division 3 foe Cassadaga Valley on Friday, while Fredonia travels to Division 1 opponent Allegany-Limestone on Wednesday.

NOTES: Luce had five rebounds, five assists, four steals and two blocked shots; Donovan Dowdy had seven rebounds and three assists; Luca Gullo had six assists; and Putney had four assists and three steals for Fredonia, which shot 26 of 51 (51%) from the field, including 10 of 21 (47.6%) from 3-point range, and turned the ball over 16 times. … Trent Lewis had 8 points and three steals; Blake Weaver had six rebounds; and Max Fisher had three steals and three assists for Frewsburg, which shot 16 of 49 (32.7%) from the field, including 2 of 12 (16.7%) from 3-point range, and turned the ball over 21 times.

FREDONIA (68)

Luce 10 0 23, Dowdy 2 0 4, Gullo 3 0 7, Koopman 1 0 3, Putney 9 6 29, Lincoln 1 0 2. Totals 26 6 68.

FREWSBURG (39)

Signorino 0 0 0, Lewis 2 3 8, Weaver 3 0 7, Eckert 0 0 0, Fisher 3 0 6, Laska 0 0 0, JCollver 2 0 4, KCollver 6 2 14. Totals 16 5 39.

3-point goals–Luce 3, Gullo, Koopman, Putney 5, Lewis, Weaver.

Fredonia 23 11 17 17 — 68

Frewsburg 13 7 13 6 — 39