CENTRAL NEW YORK – Home or away, high or low stakes, what’s become clear over the course of the last two seasons is that the Chittenango boys basketball team has gained the upper hand on its one-time nemesis.
Westhill, who denied the Bears glory so many times prior to the 2021-22 season, was again on the wrong end of things last Tuesday night when it visited Chittenango and saw the hosts take over late for a 71-55 victory.
This was close to what happened when these teams met exactly three weeks earlier at Westhill, a tense game broken open by the Bears and won 68-54.
Now, as then, it went back and forth throughout the early stages and was tight deep into the third quarter, Westhill even 40-40 with Chittenango.
But the Warriors never figured out how to contain the Bears’ brother duo of Ryan and Alex Moesch, who kept tearing through Westhill’s defense throughout the closing stretch.
By the time they were done, Ryan Moesch had 26 points and Alex Moesch 25 points, helped again by Ty Kelly, who poured in 18 points. Each of them were ahead of Westhill’s top scorers as Omar Robinson had 17 points, Kam Langdon got 13 points and Luke Gilmartin added 13 points.
From here, Chittenango went to Institute of Technology Central Friday and nearly doubled up the Eagles in an 82-42 victory to move to 13-2 on the season.
Here it was Alex Moesch leading the way with 25 points and Ryan Moesch close behind, getting 22 points. Kelly earned 12 points, while Brendon Barnard and Landon Martin had six points apiece.
While all this was going on, Chittenango’s girls team lost last Tuesday to Cortland 66-29, the state Class B no. 19-ranked Purple Tigers building a 40-19 edge by halftime.
Alazayah Smith finished with eight points, while Mia McReynolds and Abby Scheidelman had six points apiece. Cortland got 23 points from Valerosa Gamibtta and 13 points from Kendall Mack as Claire Turner added 12 points.
Chittenango was able to turn this around on Friday against Syracuse West, putting up lots of offense in a 62-42 victory where it built a 36-24 halftime advantage.
A 19-7 fourth-quarter burst put the game away for the Bears as McReynolds was red-hot from the perimeter, hitting six 3-pointers to account for most of her 19 points. Smith had 14 points, with Hailee Foran adding 12 points as Persephone Rohner got eight points.
