Christian Brothers Academy’s second-half surge ousted Corcoran from the Section III Class AA boys’ basketball playoffs Tuesday night, 56-43, at Lynch Gymnasium.
The No. 8 seed Brothers outscored the Cougars, 35-13, after intermission in the first-round game, advancing to face top seed Utica Proctor in Friday night’s quarterfinal round.
“(Proctor) beat us in the sectionals by four points over there last year,” CBA coach Buddy Wleklinski said. “At this point we’re still playing, so playing (Proctor) doesn’t matter.”
Wleklinski’s squad wasn’t doing much playing in the first half against Corcoran. The Cougars led 30-21 at halftime, and the advantage could have been more.
“To be honest, we didn’t find (Corcoran’s) shooters,” Wleklinski said. “They were hitting threes and they’re great shooters. In the second half we went one-three-one (zone) and made sure that we found them.”
Still, there was the matter of generating some offense. Brothers point guard Aaron Morgan took care of that.
The senior came out of halftime on fire, slashing to the Cougars basket at will. Morgan scored seven points in a 9-0 CBA run that tied the game at 30-30.
The teams took turns with the lead over the next few minutes before the Brothers put together a scoring spurt that gave them the lead for good.
Sparked by a Dylan Haines dunk, CBA raced into the fourth quarter on the heels of an 8-0 run.
Cougars coach Tim Schmidt could only sit back and watch his team score only three third-quarter points.
“I think we only took five or six shots there,” Schmidt said. “More than anything we were just very sloppy with the ball. (CBA) wasn’t pressuring us very hard. We were just being careless with the ball.”
Schmidt’s team was far from out of it, only trailing 40-33. But the Cougars’ sloppiness and poor shooting continued as CBA stretched its lead to 15 (52-37) before a couple of late Cougar 3-pointers made it a bit closer.
“I think our game plan was a good one,” Schmidt said. “We ran it to a ‘T’ in the first half, at least four passes for every possession and get an easy shot. We got a lot of easy shots by doing it that way. All of a sudden, we were forcing the issue for no reason.”
Morgan’s impressed his coach with both his scoring (15 points) and his floor game.
“He did a great job for us,” Wleklinski said. “Aaron is one of the few guys we have that can get to the basket with his quickness.”
Haines finished with a game-high 17 points and three blocks. Charlie Russo dropped in eight points. Henry Sullivan led Corcoran with 14 points and Shakem Buckmon notched 10 points.
The winner of Friday’s CBA-Proctor game will play either no. 4 seed Oswego or no 5 seed Cicero-North Syracuse in next week’s semifinals. The title game is March 4 in the Carrier Dome.
