By the time they were all in place, a full house of fans sat inside LeMoyne College Saturday night for the Jamesville-DeWitt boys basketball team’s appearance against Oneida in the Section III Class A semifinals.
If some of them arrived late, they missed the game.
It took the Red Rams a matter of minutes to leave the Indians far behind, doing little wrong — on the offensive end, anyway — in an opening blitz that led to an easy 89-70 victory.
And in truth, the 19-point margin was about as close as it could have possibly turned out, for J-D’s starters were long gone by the time Oneida got a good portion of its points against the Rams’ reserves.
Refreshed from a week of practice and hard work sharpening its fine edges, J-D went out and, from the tip, seemed to do whatever it wanted.
It was 6-0 in less than a minute, forcing the Indians to take a time-out. And it didn’t stop there, going to 13-1 before Oneida hit a field goal, and 25-3 before the game was five minutes old.
By the time the first-quarter ended 36-11 with Zach Chinouma’s buzzer-beating 3-pointer, J-D had seen eight different players get field goals, with five 3-pointers thrown in the mix.
Not content with that, the Rams kept on running in the second quarter. At halftime, it enjoyed a 57-34 lead, meaning that J-D got more points in one half than 12 of the 15 other winning teams in Section III semifinals got for an entire game.
At its peak, J-D led by as much as 32, and with the score 79-47 late in the third quarter, Brandon Triche, DaJuan Coleman and Lamar Kearse all went to the bench, without a need to return.
By then, Coleman had produced 16 points, dominating in the paint, while Triche backed up his 13 points (he now has 1,802 for his career) by adding 13 assists.
In all, five J-D players hit double figures. Alshwan Hymes, back from sitting out the Class A quarterfinal win over Fowler, returned and got 13 points, as did Kearse, while Zach Firestone finished with 11 points.
Though head coach Bob McKenney said he was still disappointed in J-D’s defensive effort, the Rams did hold Oneida’s all-time leading scorer, Ryan Kramer, to just eight points. Nick Dreimiller led the Indians with 17 points, with David Cieri adding 12 points and Justin Didio adding 11 points.
J-D now will make one more trip to Manley Field House, which is hosting the Section III finals for the last time.
On Saturday at 4:30, the Red Rams meet Utica-Notre Dame for the Class A championship. The no. 3 seed Jugglers, at 19-4, beat Whitesboro 55-42 in its semifinal round and feature a junior star in forward Pat Moore, who has already surpassed 1,000 career points.