Getting to the Section III Class AA semifinals a season ago gave the West Genesee boys basketball team a newfound sense of confidence and a belief that, perhaps, it was ready to make a serious championship push.
Now the task for head coach Fred Kent’s Wildcats is to follow up on that promise, and it gets a huge early test Tuesday night when one of the major AA favorites, Fayetteville-Manlius, paid a much-anticipated visit to Camillus, fresh off beating defending sectional champion Henninger 62-58 in the Peppino’s Invitational.
Before that, though, WG started the season in Baldwinsville, seeking the first-place trophy in the Kiwanis Club Tournament as it met the host Bees in Saturday’s championship game – and earning it by holding off a late B’ville surge to prevail 79-69.
In the opening round a night earlier, the Wildcats faced Auburn, and could not have dreamed of a better start to the game, which served as the foundation for a 74-51 victory over the Maroons.
A confident attack kept making baskets, and Auburn kept missing, forced into mistakes by WG’s stifling defense. By the time the first eight minutes were up, the Wildcats had a big 22-4 edge.
Somehow, WG kept it up, doubling the Maroons’ output in the second period to make it 44-15 going to the break, and the rest proved academic, the Wildcats sitting its starters to keep them fresh for the finals less than 24 hours later.
Before exiting, though, Nick Cunningham poured in 17 points, one of four Wildcats in double figures. Shane Temara had 14 points, while Will Randall gained 12 points and Troy Temara managed 10 points. Michael Schmidt finished with six points.
Now the Wildcats met B’ville, who had beaten Oswego 68-56 in the other half of the opening round by getting off to a similarly torrid start, leading 40-14 at halftime before cooling off later.
Here, the spurt took place in the second quarter. Tied at 15-15, WG started to force the Bees into all kinds of mistakes, leading to plenty of scoring opportunities on the other end – and plenty of conversions, too.
All told, the Wildcats outscored B’ville 22-6 in that frame, and from there it turned into a chase, B’ville never letting WG get too far away, but not catching up, either, as the teams combined for 58 points in a wild final period.
Nearly doubling his output from the Auburn game, Shane Temara managed 27 points to lead both sides. Cunningham contributed 13 points, while Troy Temara picked up 10 points. Schmidt and Sam Brown had seven points apiece as Randall got six points.
B’ville’ Ben DiOrio had 20 points as Cameron Skipworth (15 points), John Brecht and Kyle George (10 points each) also hit double figures.
And this leads WG to the first of two regular-season clashes with F-M (the other is Jan. 14). The Wildcats then go to the road Friday to take on Nottingham.
