CENTRAL NEW YORK – Four points down and with less than 10 seconds to go, the Jamesville-DeWitt girls basketball team may have concluded that its valiant effort against Cortland in Tuesday’s Section III Class A semifinal at Phoenix was about to end.
Instead, the Red Rams nearly pulled off a miracle.
A 3-pointer cut the Purple Tigers’ margin to one. Then Ava Sandroni stepped in front of a Cortland inbounds pass and had enough time to launch a potential game-winning shot.
Yet Claire Turner, sensing the danger, quickly got to Sandroni and blocked the shot as the clock ran out, leaving J-D on the short end of a 41-40 decision.
Ultimately, in order to win the sectional title the no. 6 seed Rams would have to upend each of the top three seeds in the Class A bracket. It had taken the first step with an impressive 57-41 win at no. 3 seed Oneida in the quarterfinals, and a win here would mean a shot at top seed Indian River in the finals.
Cortland was in between these steps, and given the Purple Tigers’ defense-first style, J-D could see a path toward victory if its own defense could play as well as it did against Oneida.
All through the first half, that proved the case, the Rams limiting Cortland to a handful of baskets and leading most of the way before the Purple Tigers inched in front, 17-15, going to the break.
It would stay tight from there, J-D mostly struggling to get anything inside but having Sandroni, Sadie Withers and Savannah Schnorr each hit on a pair of 3-pointers and Lindsay Parker add a 3-pointer to keep up.
Despite this, Cortland, led by Turner (16 points), Valerosa Gambotta and Lily Yang (11 points each), fought its way to that that 40-36 advantage before the wild conclusion.
J-D finished at 11-11 overall, having recovered from two different three-game skids early in the season and a mid-season coaching change when Scott DeForest took over for Keith Cieplicki.
DeForest was the long-time coach at Fayetteville-Manlius,who had made its own late-season surge that included an impressive sectional Class AA quarterfinal win at West Genesee on Feb. 23.
However, the no.5 seed Hornets could not carry that over into the semifinal at Oswego against top seed Central Square, who controlled matters from the outset and prevailed by a score of 61-37.
Winners of nine in a row, the Redhawks, no. 14 in the state AA rankings, beat F-M 52-38 when they met late in January, starting with a 19-8 push and never getting caught.
Here, the first quarter almost matched the previous one, Central Square jumping out 16-5 with strong performances on both ends of the floor.
Try as the Hornets could, it was unable to string together any sustained run, no player hitting double figures as Lydia Land-Steves had nine points, Taylor Novack eight points, Morgan Goodman seven points and Mia Knuth six points.
Meanwhile, the Redhawks leaned heavily on Natalie Bush and Payton St. Clair, Bush delivering 23 points and St. Clair adding 19 points as they each hit on three 3-pointers and led Central Square to a final against Auburn.
