Two previous times this winter, the Oneida boys basketball team went up against New Hartford and came up short.
But in the third and most important encounter, the Indians turned things around, going on the road and making a dramatic fourth-quarter comeback to knock off the Spartans 59-54 in Saturday night’s Section III Class A quarterfinal.
With that win, Oneida (13-7), the no. 5 seed, gets a shot at top seed Cortland (18-1) in the semifinal round Tuesday at 7:45 at Jamesville-DeWitt, with the survivor advancing to face J-D or Whitesboro in Saturday’s final at Utica Memorial Auditorium, scheduled to tip off at 2:45.
In no way did Oneida fear New Hartford, the no. 4 seed. True, it had lost both of those regular-season encounters, but the scores were 51-48 and 70-65, the latter an overtime affair on Feb. 1 where the Spartans set a school record by sinking an absurd 17 3-pointers.
Nothing close to that would happen here. The Indians did a solid job guarding New Hartford’s perimeter, limiting them to five 3-pointers, four of them from Vinny Servadio as he finished with 17 points as Derek German got 16 points.
Oneida led 18-15 after one period, but both teams slumped for the rest of the half as New Hartford pulled within 25-24 at the break. Then it looked like the Spartans were taking over as Servadio started hitting shots and the Indians fell behind, 44-37, with one period left.
Just at the right time, Oneida’s heavy defensive pressure started to wear on New Hartford, causing a rash of turnovers – and baskets on the other end as the Indians stormed to the lead. All told, it outscored the Spartans 22-10 in that last frame.
Kyle Peck, who finished with 21 points, led the comeback, while Mitch DuBois took on a larger role and earned 15 points. Benn DeRocker had eight points and Keith Johnson contributed six points.
