For the last 12 months, and especially during its run to the 2019 state Class AA championship, the West Genesee boys basketball team always seemed to pull through when faced with a severe challenge.
But those changed at the worst possible time.
Even with a top seed in the Section III playoffs and all the momentum from a 12-game win streak to close the regular season, the Wildcats were upended by no. 9 seed Rome Free Academy 70-56 in Tuesday night’s Class AA quarterfinals.
This was the same Black Knights side WG beat in last winter’s sectional semifinals, and RFA remembered that defeat, especially after seeing what the Wildcats did the rest of that post-season.
Though it only went 9-11 in the regular season, the Black Knights had already recorded an impressive 75-57 win at no. 8 seed Henninger in the Feb. 21 opening round, and would bring that same fearless energy to Camillus.
RFA wasn’t even rattled when WG broke out to an early 19-11 lead. Instead, led by the duo of Damien Call and Jeremiah Bartholomew, the Black Knights took the lead for good with a 15-0 run that bridged the first and second quarters.
A string of 3-point shots had increased RFA’s confidence, which it reinforced on defense by limiting the Wildcats without a field goal for more than five minutes, dominating on the boards and rarely letting WG get second oportunities when it missed shots.
Trailing 38-28 at halftime, the Wildcats took some hope from seeing Call, who had 13 first-half points, go down with what looked like a serious ankle injury late in the second quarter. But Call returned and would play the rest of the way.
Still, the game’s tempo slowed down, much more to WG’s liking, and it appeared that the hosts would catch up when Will Amica hit on seven consecutive points that cut the Black Knights’ lead to 46-44 early in the fourth quarter.
To its credit, RFA did not panic. Instead, with Call and Bartholomew defended well, senior forward Andrew Recco battled his way to several key baskets to expand the Black Knights’ lead. Of Recco’s 18 points, 11 of them were earned in the final period as Call also finished with 18 points and Bartholomew got 16 points.
The combination of Recco’s clutch play and WG’s inability to get any kind of production other than Amica in crunch time allowed RFA to close the game on a 17-7 run and secure one of the biggest wins in program history, advancing to Sunday’s sectional semifinal against Baldwinsville.
In his last game before heading to the University at Albany, Amica finished with a game-high 26 points. Adam Dudzinski had 15 points, while Sam Gallager had nine points, but the rest of the Wildcats were held to just three total field goals.
Even with this loss, WG’s senior class, led by Amica, John Benson, Kam Jones, Anthony Dattellas and Sam Gallager, could exit with plenty of pride at the regular-season Salt City Athletic Conference Metro division title it earned, to go with their central roles in earning the program’s first-ever state title.
