Having offered some of the most memorable court collisions of recent years, the Jamesville-DeWitt and Christian Brothers Academy boys basketball teams are set to go at it again this Friday night at Buddy Wleklisnki Court.
Before that, though, the Red Rams and Brothers have to go through a series of preliminaries in the OHSL Freedom division — some simple, others not so much.
J-D had not played in 18 days when it hosted Mexico Tuesday night — but that did not create one speck of rust for the state no. 1-ranked Red Rams as it cruised past the Tigers 87-60.
In fact, the first quarter was one long demonstration of how J-D wasn’t rusty. It pressed, got easy baskets (including a few dunks) on the other end and didn’t let up until it possessed a 30-2 lead.
From there, the Rams just cruised, as Lamar Kearse piled up 25 points and DaJuan Coleman earned 17 points. Tyler Cavanaugh and Demetrius Mitchell each had 10 points, with Jailaan Kinsey (seven points) and Pete Drescher (six points) making solid contributions, too.
As this went on, CBA, trying to recover from two defeats in its own Bottar-Leone Holiday Classic, got a huge win against Cortland, starting hot and hanging on to beat the Purple Tigers 72-60.
Completely ignoring Cortland’s 7-1 mark, the Brothers hit on 18 of 25 field goals in the first half — a 72 percent clip — and raced out to a 46-31 lead at the break.
Though it cooled off a bit, the Brothers nursed its margin through the rest of the game, overcoming fine efforts by Cortland teammates Jordan Prior (22 points) and Brandon Babcock (20 points) to win.
Jameel Balenton had a career-best 20 points, while Pat Wiese got most of his 17 points from four 3-pointers. Greg Thomson and Troy Bullock earned nine points apiece, with Shakir Evans (eight points) and Yosh Karbowniczak (seven points) close behind.
