Saturday, March 21, 2015: Recap of Friday's NYSPHSAA basketball semifinals

   Leading off today: The unbeatens took a bit of a beating Friday in the New York State Public High School Athletic Association basketball semifinals in Glens Falls and Troy.

   The final fours this weekend feature six boys and three girls teams with unblemished records, but the first two to hit the court lost: Bridgehampton's boys downed Moriah and Jamesville-DeWitt's girls took out Albertus Magnus.

   In boys Class D action, Bridgehampton blew past previously unblemished Moriah 68-50 by means of a 31-9 scoring rampage in the fourth quarter at the Glens Falls Civic Center.

   Charles Manning Jr. led the Killer Bees with 29 points, 12 in the fourth, plus nine rebounds. Josh Lamison, giving away six inches to Moriah center Ryan Jaquish, scored 19 points and grabbed 13 rebounds despite playing the entire fourth quarter with four fouls.

   The Bees went to a trapping defense early in the second half, cutting a 36-25 deficit to 41-37 entering the fourth quarter.

   Bridgehampton, which won the last of its eight state championships in 1998, advances to Saturday's Class D final vs. New York Mills, which defeated International Prep 66-58 with a startling comeback of its own.

   Down 11 midway through the fourth quarter, New York Mills rattled off 17 straight points over an 8:53 span and beat Buffalo's I-Prep 66-58 in overtime. Junior guard Terry Nichols scored 25 points to go with nine assists and seven steals for the Marauders, the defending champs.

   "This is special, especially after losing the players that we did from last year's team," Nichols told The Observer-Dispatch. "Everybody was down on us, even some people in our community doubted us. But we knew coming back here that it was going to be a dogfight."

   New York Mills coach Mike Adey's timeout after two fast-break baskets had given the Presidents an 11-point lead came with 6:08 left and his team trailing 54-43.

   "We all looked at each other and said we've got to make a run and it's got to start now," Nichols said.

   The Marauders have won their last 35 games against Class D competition.

   Boys Class C: Unbeaten Waterville will play for its first state championship Saturday after rolling past Lyons 66-48. Zach Sawyer scored 23 points and had seven rebounds, and senior Will Specht added 15 points on five 3-pointers for Waterville.

   Waterville held Lyons senior guard Damon Hunter to 22 points on 7-for-16 shooting. Hunter, who hadn't scored fewer than 30 points in any previous playoff game this winter, scored 10 fourth-quarter points with the game already out of reach and subsequently fouled out and was hit with a technical foul.

   In the other semifinal, Lake George downed Haldane 70-60. Joel Wincowski scored a game-high 21 points, Kyle Jones added 19 and Craig Keenan added 18.

   Lake George led 20-19 midway through the second quarter, but Wincowski found Jones for a 3-pointer. When Wincowski connected from behind the arc with 1:35 left in the half, the score was 28-19. Back-to-back 3-pointers by Jones early in the third quarter stretched the advantage to 38-25.

   "It's great to be going into the last day of the season playing for a state championship," Wincowski told The Times Union.

   Boys Class B: Jordan Roland, who put on a show for the ages a year ago in Glens Falls, scored 38 points as Westhill defeated a stubborn Rochester Leadership Academy 69-53. Forward Tyler Reynolds chipped in with four 3-pointers and 19 points to go with 11 rebounds.

   Leadership Academy pulled with a bucket at 44-42 late in the third quarter, but Roland hit a 3-pointer for a little breathing room and tacked on seven more points early in the fourth quarter to give the Warriors control of the game.

   "We were expecting a real athletic team, and that's what we got," said Roland.

   Leadership Academy coach Reggie Simmons took pride in hanging close to Westhill for so long even if the final score didn't reflect the competitiveness of the game.

   "We had to be perfect out there today, and we were just a little off center," Simmons said. "Today the better team won."

   Westhill defends its NYSPHSAA title Saturday against Woodlands, a 61-43 winner over Ogdensburg Free Academy.

   Woodlands rode a balanced offensive attack to victory. Ross Joseph (17 points), Pierre Lys (15) and Brandon Johnson (14) led the way. Jamil Gambari added 11 points.

2015 NYSPHSAA boys basketball brackets 2015 NYSPHSAA girls basketball brackets 2015 NYSPHSAA boys hockey brackets N.Y. wrestling championships (PDF): Div. I | Div. II N.Y. indoor track championships: Boys | Girls

   Girls Class A: As good as Jamesville-DeWitt is, the ease with which the Red Rams took out unbeaten Albertus Magnus was a shock. Meg Hair scored 15 points, Alyssa Robens 13 and Carly O'Hern 12 in a 56-33 rout at Hudson Valley Community College.

   "I didn't see that coming," senior captain Alyssa Robens told Syracuse.com.

   Albertus Magnus scored just two points in the third quarter and finished 2-of-20 on 3-point attempts against the J-D zone.

   "It's pretty impressive," said Jamesville-DeWitt coach Rob Siechen. "I was shocked at how well we covered the 3-point line. Our schedule battle tested us for this stage."

   J-D will play Williamsville South for the championship Saturday. Zaria McCullough (10 points) made six straight free throws in the final 2:00 to finish off a 73-69 win over North Shore.

   A McCullough 3-pointer broke a 62-62 tie with 2:07 to go.    Erin Egan led the winners with 19 points to help offset 26 by Alexandra Cantwell of North Shore.

   Girls Class B: Hoosick Falls put on a memorable perimeter shooting display in the second half and defeated Irvington 55-36.

   Leading 20-17 at the half, the Panthers went 8-for-9 on 3-pointers over the final 16 minutes to finish 10-for-21 on treys. Hoosick Falls made six straight 3-pointers -- two each by Anna Wysocki, Chelsea Stevens and Rachel Pine -- during the third quarter. Five came during a 19-0 rampage to open the third quarter and extended the lead to 39-17.

   "It is just crazy. I can't even think about what we just did," Stevens told The Times Union. "It will hit me all later."

   "I have never seen that in all the years I have been coaching," said Irvington coach Gina Maher, a state basketball hall of fame inductee with 626 wins and four NYSPHSAA championships. "When kids do that, they start to believe. Anything they put up, it was going in because they believed -- and we sort of didn't, I guess."

   Hoosick Falls' opponent in the final will be Susquehanna Valley, a 53-46 winner vs. East Aurora.

   Shayna Lee scored 16 points and Erin Nolan added 11 to lead the Sabers' offense. Two Nolan buckets and a Caitlyn Knapp layup put Susquehanna Valley up 47-38 with 2:37 to play. After East Aurora cut the margin to four, Lee and Nolan made two free throws apiece.

   Girls Class AA: Ossining moved within one win of a NYSPHSAA three-peat by downing Bethlehem 70-54 as forward Jalay Knowles scored a team-high 27 points on 11-of-17 shooting and grabbed 18 rebounds. Junior Shadeen Samuels sat with four fouls in the second half, but still contributed 14 points.

   Five Ossining players combined for eight 3-point baskets. Bethlehem shot 1-for-16 from beyond the arc.

   The final pits the Pride against Rush-Henrietta, which in 2008 became the only team to three-peat in the girls Class AA tournament. The Royal Comets downed Commack 60-46 to improve to 23-0.

   "I was just really impressed with them, the way they were coached, the way those kids played," Commack coach Denis Conroy told the Democrat and Chronicle. "Any time we made a play, it seemed like they had an answer."

   Dana Watts (23 points), Emily Nestler (21) and Sarah Sweazy (13) combined to make 22 of 39 shots for R-H. Watts and Nestler each had 11 rebounds.