ONONDAGA COUNTY – As it has done in recent years, the boys basketball teams of Jamesville-DeWitt and Christian Brothers Academy served as hosts for two days of competition in the Peppino’s Invitational.
J-D and CBA faced each other in the featured game Friday night at Buddy Wleklinski Court. Still short-handed while waiting for football players to finish their season, the Brothers put up a great battle before falling to the Red Rams 50-47.
Hot early shooting had the Brothers out in front 19-6 through one period, but it was held to four points in the second quarter as J-D made up most of the ground.
Patient and strong on the defensive side, the Rams did not take the lead for good until the final minutes, hanging on largely thanks to 16 points from Nate Johnson and 15 points from Stephen Bazile. Eamon Giblin added nine points.
Then on Saturday night it was J-D taking on Bishop Grimes, reuniting the Red Rams with coach Bob McKenney once more. Again it was close – and again, the Rams came out on top, this time 52-51.
J-D jumped out to a 20-13 first-quarter advantage, and would basically spend the rest of the game fighting off all of the Cobras’ attempts to catch up, hanging on despite just eight points in the final period.
Terrell Willis led the Rams with 15 points and Jackson Saroney added 12 points. Carrying Grimes most of the way, Nate Abernethy produced 22 points and Garang Garang had 17 points, but the rest of the squad had just five total baskets.
Three players accounted for most of CBA’s production. Gino Bullock set a new career mark with 17 points, just ahead of Gavin Penix’s total of 15 points as Tom Menar finished with 10 points.
CBA earned its first win of the season earlier that day beating Corcoran 70-46 while Fayetteville-Manlius pulled out a big victory in its season opener, battling past Utica Proctor 47-41.
All game long it was tight, a combination of strong defense and poor shooting preventing either side from pulling clear. The key was that the Hornets never let the Raiders score more than 12 points in any single period.
Boomer Kuss led F-M’s attack, getting 16 points. He, along with Charlie Schroder (12 points) and Reilly Anderson (10 points), accounted for all but three of the Hornets’ field goals as Ryder Burns had a pair of 3-pointers to get six points.
Breaking out in a big way against Corcoran, CBA built a 25-17 halftime advantage and then could not miss in a 30-point third quarter where Penix continually burned the Cougars on his way to a new career mark of 34 points that included 12 field goals, three of them 3-pointers.
And Penix had some help, too, especially from Drew Britton, who got half his 18 points equaling Penix’s trio of 3-pointers, while Bullock finished with six points.
Before all this, J-D had endured a pair of close defeats, to Westhill at the Nov. 29 Zebra Classic and again in last Tuesday’s game at West Genesee which resulted in a 62-59 loss.
The first quarter proved decisive, WG jumping out 17-8. Though the Rams closed the gap to 29-25 by halftime it kept getting answered throughout a tense second half.
Alan Zanders had 16 points, with Saroney and Eamon Giblin earning 10 points apiece. Aiden Phelan helped carry the Wildcats to victory with 26 points, including four 3-pointers.
