Ever since the East Syracuse Minoa boys basketball team got its last-second win over Jamesville-DeWitt on Jan. 10, the two sides had marked time, waiting for the rematch.
And when it happened Tuesday night, the Spartans held the no. 25 state ranking, with the Red Rams unranked and bent on payback, all while riding a seven-game win streak.
Neither team would trip up in the games leading up to this battle, ESM getting tested a bit last Tuesday by Fulton, but still engineering a 60-45 victory over the Red Raiders.
Fulton played a solid first half and led, 32-31, at the break, but the Spartans’ defense smothered the Red Raiders the rest of the way.
It was Matt Burchill-Wright leading the way for ESM, earning 17 points (most of them in the first quarter to get the offense going), while do-everything reserve Joe Copp chimed in with 12 rebounds.
J-D had a far easier time of it that night wiping out Cortland 81-41, a game that was relatively tight until the Red Rams flattened the Purple Tigers with a 32-point third quarter.
Payton Shumpert led with 23 points, including a pair of breakaway dunks, and in the process became the latest J-D player to reach the 1,000-career point mark, joining an illustrious group of alumni.
Otherwise, Trey Autry had 14 points, while Preston Shumpert (12 points) and Matt Cielpicki (10 points) also hit double figures as John Marshall Withers had eight points and Matt Bradford got six points.
Moving to Friday’s action, J-D routed PSLA-Fowler 71-33, getting it going with a 19-0 first-quarter shutout and continuing from there, Autry earning 13 points as Withers and Preston Shumpert had 11 points apiece, Cieplicki adding nine points.
Meanwhile, ESM went to Oswego, where without Peterson in the lineup it parlayed a near-shutout in the second quarter into a comfortable 62-42 win over the Buccaneers.
Things were close until that second period, the Spartans limiting Oswego to four points and building a 30-16 advantage that it protected well the rest of the way.
Mascato-Buffaloe roared back to form with 21 points, including eight successful free throws. Jimmy Ferns stepped up, too, earning 14 points as Copp added 11 points.
In a non-league game on Saturday, J-D faced Section IV’s Johnson City, and did not get close to making the mistake of looking past this opponent to the looming ESM battle.
The Red Rams ripped the Wildcats 80-48, using a 25-9 second quarter to break it open. Payton Shumpert’s 26 points included four 3-pointers as Cieplicki put in 20 points and Autry got 12 points. Bradford added seven points.
