A double-digit lead was gone. Three players had fouled out. A field goal had not been registered for nearly nine minutes.
Put it all together, and the Jamesville-DeWitt boys basketball team’s nightmare scenario was playing out late in Friday night’s Section III Class A semifinal against Bishop Grimes at SRC Arena.
Then, with two big shots in overtime, Buddy Boeheim pulled the no. 2 seed Red Rams out of its tailspin, transforming disaster into a 75-68 victory over the no. 3 seed Cobras and a shot at the program’s first sectional title in five years.
“I never felt more stressed out during a game,” said Boeheim. “But now, I feel amazing.”
Two minutes remained in OT, and J-D had just fallen behind, 68-65, when Grimes’ Dom Delvecchio hit a 3-pointer in the left corner. The Rams still had not converted a field goal since the opening 90 seconds of the fourth quarter.
Finally breaking the Cobras’ press, the Rams passed it around until Boeheim, open in the left corner, took a 3-pointer and buried it, tying the game 68-68. Then, after a defensive stop, J-D again found Boeheim, who this time had a defender in his face when he launched another 3-pointer. It swished, too.
Stunned by those back-to-back blows, Grimes did not score again, and the Rams put it away with free throws from both Boeheim and two players, Darvin Lovette and Luke Smith, who were only in the game because the trio of Terrence Echols, Takuya LaClair and Marcus Johnson were out with five fouls.
Of Boeheim’s 33 points, 10 of them came in the OT, a fact that J-D head coach Jeff Ike acknowledged while praising his entire team for its resilience.
“Buddy got hot at the perfect time,” said Ike. “But it doesn’t matter who you are. When it’s your time, you step up, and everybody did.”
They had to, since Bishop Grimes, intent on avenging a 71-67 OT defeat to the Rams on Dec. 23, displayed its own brand of heart and courage fighting back in a game where it trailed most of the way.
With the Cobras determined to contain Boeheim, J-D’s Ronald Lewis took full advantage, earning all of his 17 points by the third quarter as the Rams, who led 33-23 at halftime, withstood a Cobras charge in the third quarter and restored most of that margin, taking a 53-44 advantage to the final period.
But after Matt Carlin’s lay-up with 6:53 left, the Rams did not get another field goal for the rest of regulation. Grimes picked up its defensive pressure and forced turnovers, leading to a 13-2 run that tied the game, 59-59, with less than a minute left.
A free-throw battle followed, J-D missing enough of them so that it only led by one, 63-62, when Grimes aimed to win it at the end of regulation.
Fittingly, Shawn Gashi got the ball. On his way to a team-high 27 points, Gashi had constantly beat J-D’s defenders with a quick first step that led to open lanes, and Gashi did so again here, drawing a foul with 4.1 seconds left.
Under immense pressure, Gashi missed the first free throw, but made the second to tie it, 63-63, and it would reach OT when a last-second shot by Lewis got blocked.
Carrying all of the momentum, the Cobras twice went ahead in the four-minute extra period before Boeheim put on the biggest clutch performance of his high school career.
And it sends J-D into the sectional Class A title game next Sunday at 4:30 at SRC Arena against Syracuse Academy of Science, who used 15 3-pointers to put away Whitesboro 81-59 in the other semifinal
The Atoms beat the Rams 80-68 back on Jan. 11. Boeheim said the key to atoning for that defeat is to deal better with full-court pressure and stay composed – the same things that had saved them against Grimes.
“Our boys will be prepared,” said Ike.
