SYRACUSE – Just as it has done many times before, the Westhill boys basketball team will culminate a season in close pursuit of a state Class B championship.
The Warriors easily secured another trip to the state final four Saturday at SRC Arena when it took apart Section IV champion Owego Free Academy 72-38 in the Class B regional final.
In every way this game did not resemble the tense, emotional battles Westhill waged on this same court just to get the Section III title, first avenging a string of defeats to Chittenango in the semifinals and then outlasting Marcellus in the sectional title game.
Instead, what the regional game amounted to was waiting for a moment where Owego, heavily dependent on outside shooting, started to miss on a regular basis and the Warriors took full advantage.
Frustrated by Westhill’s constant man-to-man pressure, Owego began to rush shots and, for a stretch of nearly seven minutes spanning the first and second quarters, was shut out.
That stretch began when the score was still 12-8, and continued until it had gone 30-8 in the middle of a second – a run of 18 unanswered points.
Shawn Mayes’ 3-pointer launched the run, with free throws from Kam Langdon and a 3-pointer from Luke Gilmartin making it 20-8 by the end of the opening quarter.
As Owego stayed cold and unable to break out of its drought, six of the next 10 points were put in by James Derrick, with Omar Robinson and Sean Rogers also contributing free throws.
Even when Owego broke the drought, Westhill stretched its margin to 38-16 by halftime and did not let up, ultimately building a 61-28 advantage before the starters rested early in the fourth quarter.
Robinson finished with a team-high 18 points, followed closely by Mayes’ 17 points and Langdon’s 16 points, yet another display of solid scoring balance from a team accustomed to it.
Now it’s to Glens Falls’ Cool Insuring Arena, where Westhill has a chance to add yet another state Class B title to the four it earned from 2010 to 2017.
Getting it will mean having to beat Section V’s Newark in Saturday morning’s state semifinal at 10:45 a.m. The winner gets to Sunday’s 1 p.m. state final against Catholic Central or Southampton.
