Photos and sory by CHRIS BROOKS, managing editor, wellsvillesports.com; video by John Anderson
BATH — As you continue to travel deeper and deeper in the midst of your Sectional journey, the more you will begin to witness the challenges that lie before you. Those arduous postseason assessments present a gauge and help decipher where your truest mettle lies, each and every step of the way.
At this stage in the game, just one single punching of the Sectional ticket was needed to make the reservation for the royal ball on Section V’s biggest hardwood stage in Rochester, this weekend.
The journey for the No. 7 Lions of Wellsville started brilliantly with big wins over North Rose-Wolcott and Canisteo-Greenwood in the wagon leading into Monday night’s colossal showdown with No. 3 Marcus Whitman — a team that is also more than battle-tested after partaking in tough tests against the likes of Geneva, Wayne, Class C1 powerhouse Lyons and a pair of contests against the newest Class A juggernaut, Newark across their campaign.
With either defending Class B2 finalist LeRoy or top-seeded Avon awaiting on the other side of it all, Wellsville and Marcus Whitman would engage in a closely-knit battle of wits across the majority of their Semifinal bout. With very little wiggle room to spare between the two combatants, it was a matter of making every basket count. Especially at this stage in the game.
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Multiple lead changes were exchanged, many momentum shifts, many quick transitions up and down the court. The pace was set. With the puzzle pieces awaiting assembly, it would all boil down to what the last eight minute period of the night had to offer.
Something had to give way, and although it would take just over half of the quarter’s time, there was a breakthrough — the Marcus Whitman defense.
The third-seeded Wildcats went all-in on a breakaway fourth quarter, propelled by an incredibly stellar safeguarding effort that kept the Lions at a complete standstill. With a four-point lead in hand with four minutes remaining, they would fasten their seat belts and deliver a game-ending run that saw them score the final seven unanswered points to transition the momentum in their favor completely on both ends of the floor, using it to end Wellsville’s season and coast straight to the Class B2 Finals with a 44-33 win.
“All year, we have talked about trying to put those 32 minutes together,” said Lions coach Tom Muska. “Could we do that? Our last two games in Sectionals, we did that. We were shining. But tonight, it was the first 24 minutes, and there were a lot of things that went into it. Playoff basketball, you usually have a kid step up and that was Tyler (Vogel) last game against Canisteo-Greenwood. Tonight, (Myles) Prendergast hit a few threes where it changed our game plan enough to hang in there all game leading into the fourth, and walk away with it.”
Before Marcus Whitman composed a giant fourth quarter symphony to reverse the momentum back in their favor, they would first begin to work an opening eight minute period that saw Myles Prendergast take off and running with five of the team’s first seven points — all of which, sandwiched in between a Cooper Brockway three for the Lions, to claim an early 7-3 lead.
The game would see plenty of quick responses to the baskets that were put on full display. JJ Howard would provide one of many examples of that with two fantastic looks inside to pull Wellsville back within one — the latter of the buckets stemming on a wide-open run to the rim, resulting in an authoritative one-handed jam.
Marcus Whitman’s lead would work its way back out to four at the closing sequence of the frame, building on it later on in at the very beginning of the second quarter where a third Prendergast triple fell straight through the twine to extend their advantage on the Lions out to seven points. It was the largest lead held by either side across the first half, but it was one that was not completely out of reach by any means for the No. 7 seeds, as they continued to close the gap again with a plethora of contributions on the attack, sourced from Howard, Aiden Cowburn and Ty Vogel to make it an 18-15 game.
A triple from Vogel pulled the Lions across level playing ground with less than two minutes remaining in the half, but only for a brief moment when the Wildcats regrouped and recaptured the lead once again off an accidental drop pass from Prendergast to the top of the key where Brody Royston knocked down a big three that served as the half’s final basket.
Down three going into the break, the Lions remained in reach. For Muska, he said that they just had to keep believing in their defense, especially when it came to defending the long-range shot.
“We have a young team, but once we were able to settle in, those nerves went away,” he said. “Everyone got comfortable and we started to look better. The message to keep that going was to limit their three-pointers. They had 15 of their 21 points in the first half from that, and Prendergast had two or three in the first half. He usually hits only one a game for them. We weren’t shying away with what we put up on defense. We were good and we had to keep trusting it.”
Wellsville would go on to do just that, holding Marcus Whitman to just one more three point across the entire second half. But it soon set up another scenario: the inside game battle.
Both teams went back-and-forth across the beginning stages of the third quarter, continuing the pace that was set since the very beginning. An amalgamation of lead changes were traded between the two squads before witnessing a 25-25 come to fruition off back-to-back inside looks from Tariku Blueye.
But that was the last look the Wildcats would capitalize on across the entire frame, as the Lions defense held the fort down by producing an 11-6 run to springboard ahead with a 29-27 lead after holding their opposition scoreless for the last three minutes.
In the fourth quarter however, despite a temporary power outage on offense in the late stages of the third quarter, Marcus Whitman bounced back with some high voltage of their own — a 17-4 game-changing jaunt of Wellsville that saw them maximize their opportunities, ranging from big offensive rebounds off the glass, to forcing turnovers on defense, to even producing a momentum-changing charge underneath the basket to force the possession back down the court.
Once and for all in a game-long back-and-forth affair, the Wildcats put all the pieces of the puzzle together to frame their defensive work of art with an 8-for-9 outing at the charity stripe in the midst of Wellsville’s fouling game within the final minute of play, ultimately putting the seal on their invitation to Blue Cross Arena this weekend to battle for the Class B2 Championship.
JJ Howard paced the Lions offense with his 10 team-leading points. Following behind was Ty Vogel and Aiden Cowburn, each knocking down seven points.
The 2023-24 campaign for the Lions of Wellsville has reached its conclusion, as they wrap up the season with a record of 9-14 overall.
The team will graduate just three seniors at the end of the school year this June, in Brockway, Alex Green and Ethan Bailey.
“I was just talking with the guys in the locker room after the game. It’s a shame that we have to lose those three guys,” Muska said. “They will always be a part of this Wellsville basketball family, so I can’t thank them enough for their contributions since I’ve been here. They really worked hard to get this far. It was certainly a slow start after starting the season at 0-5, but we went .500 the rest of the way. We had to take 10 games to have our offseason because of the injuries that prevented us from seeing each other a lot over the summer. But hopefully, that’s a wrong that we can make right in time for next October.”
Wellsville 9 9 11 4 – 33
Marcus Whitman 13 8 6 17 – 44
WELLSVILLE: Aiden Cowburn 3 0-2 7, Karson Grover 1 0-0 2, Cooper Brockway 1 0-0 3, JJ Howard 5 0-0 10, Ty Vogel 2 2-2 7, Trenton Green 2 0-0 4. Totals: 14 2-4 33.
MARCUS WHITMAN: Melkamu Blueye 0 1-2 1, Myles Prendergast 6 3-4 19, Brody Royston 5 6-7 18, Tariku Blueye 3 0-2 6. Totals: 14 10-15 44.
3-point goals: Wellsville 3 (Cowburn, Brockway, Vogel), Whitman 6 (Prendergast 4, Royston 2).
Total Fouls: Wellsville 15, Whitman 8. Fouled out: None.
