ONONDAGA COUNTY – All the championship history shared by the boys and girls basketball programs at Jamesville-DeWitt make appearing in Section III title games something close to an obligation.
But it had been a while since both Red Rams teams were in sectional finals, making Friday night’s experience at SRC Arena both frustrating and valuable.
Attempting to topple defending champion Westhill in the boys sectional Class A final, J-D, in its first sectional final since 2019, could not contain Warriors standout Eli Prince, who carried his side past the Rams 71-53.
These same teams had met back on Nov. 29 in the Zebra Classic at Liverpool. J-D lost that game 54-51, and that was without Prince in the lineup for the Warriors.
Prince was here now, and from the opening tip he probed against the Rams’ defenders looking for openings and, after some early baskets, really got going after a 3-pointer to close the first quarter extended his team’s lead to 21-16.
Of Westhill’s last 20 points in the half Prince had 18 of them, giving him 24 overall, exactly matching J-D’s team total.
Try as it could, the Rams could not put together a sustained run in the second half even as Prince cooled down, though he still finished with 37 points to set a new career mark while adding 10 rebounds and five assists.
Alan Zanders paced J-D with 17 points. Terrell Willis had 12 points and six rebounds, with Stephen Bazile earning 10 points, four rebounds and three assists. Jackson Saroney contributed six points.
This followed the girls sectional Class A final where J-D also faced a formidable top seed, Utica Notre Dame, and had its own difficulty with Jugglers superstar Ella Trinkaus in the course of a 47-24 defeat.
UND won the state Class B championship a year ago. Bumped up to Class A, the Jugglers brought an 18-3 record but, more importantly, brought Trinkaus, who thwarted an otherwise stellar performance by J-D’s defense.
From the moment Trinkaus scored in the game’s opening seconds UND never trailed. Especially in the first half, Trinkaus was able to get open looks and convert them.
Ultimately Trinkaus, with 27 points, outscored the entire Rams roster while piling up 15 rebounds. She also got six steals as part of a stellar Jugglers defense which held the Rams quiet for long stretches of the game as only Ava Sandroni, with eight points, had more than two field goals.
J-D earned this spot Monday night in the sectional semifinals at Central Square, where it overcame a rough start and had Sandroni get to a personal milestone as it beat no. 6 seed Central Valley Academy 59-47.
Despite holding a 13-8 record the Thunder put the Rams under some early stress, bolting out to a 15-7 lead by the end of the first quarter before J-D completely turned it around.
With its defense settling into form, the Rams outscored CVA 18-7 the rest of the half to take the lead for good and then gradually built upon its 25-22 lead throughout the second half.
All the while, Sandroni kept making baskets, finally released from the pressure of reaching 1,000 career points early in the game and able to do whatever she wanted despite the Thunder’s attempts to contain her.
Between 10 field goals and 12 successful free throws, Sandroni set a new career mark with 33 points, adding seven rebounds to match Lindsay Parker along with six steals.
Samantha Wheeler’s late-season emergence continued as she got a double-double of 11 points and 13 rebounds. Savannah Schnorr gained nine points, with Sadie Withers and Ella Parker earning five rebounds apiece.
A day later, East Syracuse Minoa played in the sectional Class AA semifinal against top seed West Genesee at Phoenix, where the no. 5 Spartans’ season ended with a 48-38 defeat to the Wildcats.
