Once again on a March Saturday evening in Glens Falls Civic Center, the Westhill boys basketball team lay claim to a state Class B championship – and make no mistake, the whole team won this.
Fair or not, the Warriors’ blinding success of the last two seasons was seen, in some circles, as a two-man show, with the duo of Jordan Roland and Tyler Reynolds filling up stat sheets and piling up baskets and the rest of the players seen as a capable supporting cast, but little more.
They couldn’t say that on this evening, though. Westhill’s 70-62 conquest of Section I champion Woodlands in the state title game did see, again, strong efforts from Jordan Roland, whose 18 points and 15 rebounds made him tournament MVP, and Reynolds, who had a team-high 20 points.
But it was other players, from the hot-shooting Ryan Roland to the tenacious Brian Daily, who keyed the Warriors’ turnaround after a poor start against the Falcons, and set the table for the ferocious stretch late in the third quarter that put away yet another state title, the program’s third in six years.
Woodlands, a school from Westchester County, brought a deep, athletic and experienced (eight seniors on its roster) team into the game, determined to win a first-ever state championship and equally determined not to let Westhill match the 93-55 destruction of last year’s title game, where Roland and Reynolds combined for 79 points (Jordan 41, Tyler 38).
For a long while, it looked like the Falcons could pull it off.
Unfazed by the big moment, Woodlands bolted out to an 11-2 lead in the game’s first four minutes, and when Westhill appeared to settle down, the Falcons scored the final five points of the period, leaving the Warriors behind 19-9 going to the second period.
Still down by double digits, 27-17, midway through the second period, the Warriors needed a spark outside of its usual pair, whom Woodlands was expending most of its defensive energy.
Changing things up, head coach Kevin King brought in his bench. While Mike Burton and Chase Gedney offered defensive energy, it was Brian Daily providing a bigger spark, notching nine first-half points (he finished with 11, plus seven rebounds), while Ryan Roland offered up a pair of timely 3-pointers.
All of it was part of a 12-2 Warrior run that tied the game, 29-29, late in the half. And though Woodlands regained the lead before the break, Westhill was just teasing the more decisive move it would make once the second half got underway.
It began with Reynolds’ 3-pointer midway through the third quarter with his team trailing, 39-35. Just one minute later, Jeff Lobello, also from beyond the arc, connected and, for the first time all night, Westhill had the lead.
Then the Roland brothers took over. Ryan Roland’s 3-pointer preceded Jordan Roland’s driving lay-up, and by the time Jordan had hit a 3-pointer to make it 51-41, the Warriors had notched 13 consecutive points in a span of less than two minutes.
Woodlands never recovered. Though it pulled within six, 51-45, early in the fourth quarter, Reynolds countered with a corner jumper, and Ryan Roland’s back-to-back 3-pointers gave him 15 points for the night, and, that, plus Reynolds’ dunk, all but sealed the fourth state title in the program’s history.
Now Westhill will look for the “double-double” when, next weekend, it tries to repeat the Federation Class B championship it won in 2014 at SUNY-Albany’s SEFCU Arena.
In Saturday’s semifinal at 1 p.m., the Warriors face Park School, from Buffalo, the Catholic Association champion. A win there puts them in Sunday’s final at 4 p.m. against Maspeth, champions of New York City’s Public School Athletic League, or Dwight, an independent school also from New York City.