Two wins this weekend at Hudson Valley Community College would earn the Jamesville-DeWitt girls basketball team a return ticket to Troy for a second consecutive crack at the state Class A final four – and it got both of them.
Given the way it was set up this time, the Red Rams’ bigger challenge lay in the first of the two regional games, coming Friday night against Section II champion Averill Park, who was burning to avenge last season’s 56-53 regional final defeat.
J-D would not let that happen, though.
A superb team effort in the fourth quarter broke open a close, tense contest, and the Red Rams defeated the Warriors 55-46, advancing to Saturday’s regional final against Peru (Section VII), where it would have a far easier time of it, romping past the Indians 63-30.
Averill Park had beaten top-seeded Troy (who had knocked off J-D in the regular season) in the Section II finals on March 7. With eight seniors on its roster, the Warriors had plenty of experience, plus an urgency to get a shot at a state championship now. Plus, it was playing close to home at MVCC.
But from the moment Maddy Frank sank her team’s first field goal, a 3-pointer, to erase an early 5-1 deficit, J-D showed it wasn’t about to let Averill Park get comfortable.
Trailing 18-15 after one period, the Rams began the second quarter on an 11-2 run, capped by another Frank 3-pointer. But J-D didn’t score a single point the rest of the half as Averill Park clamped down on defense and put together its own 10-0 spurt.
When Samantha Laranjo banked in a 3-pointer late in the half, Averill Park stretched out to a 30-26 lead that it took to the locker room.
Instead of letting that shot bother them, though, J-D stepped up its own defensive pressure during the third quarter, holding the Warriors to seven points. Despite that, and a Kasey Vaughan 3-pointer that briefly put the Rams in front, Averill Park still led, 37-36, heading to the final period.
And it was there that J-D played at its top level, starting with Vaughan’s second 3-pointer. Everyone in the rotation did something important, including Angela Bussone, who throughout the game excelled on the defensive side with five steals and four rebounds to go with her four points.
Meg Hair’s driving basket with 4:50 left pushed the Rams ahead for good, 43-42, and as it continued to shut down anything the Warriors tried to establish on the other end, Frank and Alyssa Robens came up with key baskets.
Then, with 1:24 left, Hair converted again, making it 50-44, and Carly O’Hern delivered the knockout blow with a 3-pointer just as the shot clock expired in the final minute.
Hair finished with 13 points, while Frank gained a double-double of 10 points and 10 rebounds. O’Hern (nine points), Robens (eight points) and Vaughan (six points) were close behind as Julia Kelner got five points. Laranjo led Averill Park with 13 points, while Alyssa Anthony added 12 points.
Less than 24 hours later on that same HVCC court, J-D met up with Peru, who had edged past Franklin Academy 51-46 in its regional semifinal, and that outcome was never in question.
It was 11-0 before Peru scored its first basket, nearly six minutes into the game. Bigger and stronger than the Indians, J-D then scored the first 13 points of the second quarter and had a 30-4 edge at one point, going to halftime up 34-7, having allowed just one field goal to that point.
The margin got to 54-16 at one point in the third quarter, and the starters rested in the fourth quarter. Hair finished with 14 points as Frank got six points and seven rebounds.
In next Friday’s state Class A semifinal at 3:15, J-D will try to take down unbeaten, state no. 1-ranked Albertus Magnus (Section I), who had to rally and beat Wallkill 56-52 in overtime in its regional final. The winner here gets Williamsville South (Section VI) or North Shore (Section XI) in the state title game one night later.
