CENTRAL NEW YORK – Ever since a Jan. 14 defeat to Bishop Ludden the Westhill boys basketball team has roared through all of its competition, including season sweeps of Marcellus and Skaneateles.
Yet Westhill’s excellence has not limited itself to local rivals, which Cortland found out last Monday night in the course of a 64-40 decision to the team still ranked no. 6 in the state in Class A.
All game long the Purple Tigers found itself contained by Westhill’s increasingly stingy defense. Then the attack got going in a 24-8 third-quarter blitz which augmented the 26-17 halftime lead it built.
Eli Prince finished with 22 points, while Colin Shiel and Jack Hayes got seven points apiece. Eli Welch, Kamari Lewis and Collin White got six points apiece, with Jackson Goodness and Mike Bova each earning five points.
A day later it was Westhill topping Institute of Technology Central 63-55, keyed by an active first half where it established a 38-31 margin on the Eagles which ITC could pick away at but never fully erase.
Returning to some early-season scoring form, Prince put up 28 points. Hayes gained 10 points, just ahead of the nine points from Goodness as Welch and Lewis earned six points apiece.
Westhill then made it three wins in four days when it dismantled Bishop Grimes 66-34 on Thursday night, the defense again seizing the center stage.
Back on Sunday Grimes took an 81-69 defeat to Bishop Timon, from Buffalo, but Nate Abernethy poured in 37 points from 14 field goals, four of them 3-pointers.
Knowing this, Westhill concentrated on containing Abernethy and did so, the senior only hitting on two field goals and finishing with nine points, which still led the Cobras as Bol Garang and A.J. Wade had six points apiece.
Similar to the Cortland game Prince again picked up 22 points and again the production behind him was spread out. Goodness got all of his nine points from three 3-pointers and Welch also got nine points, with Trevor Young gaining eight points and Colin Shiel contributing six points.
As for Marcellus, it still moved up to no. 4 in the state Class B poll despite the Westhill defeat and kept the upper hand on its rivalry with Skaneateles last Wednesday with a 75-58 win over the Lakers.
The first quarter decided it, Marcellus sprinting out 28-6 on Skaneateles which allowed it to trade baskets with the Lakers the rest of the night without seeing its margin decrease too much as it held Lakers standout Reid Danforth to six points.
Mitch Donegan had 18 points and Connor Ciota 15 points, Dom Gosh-Sandy adding 10 points as Damyn LeClair earned nine points and Max Chapman eight points. On Skaneateles’ side, Jack Peenstra led with 17 points, Finlay Coyne adding 10 points.
