The Oneida Daily Dispatch (Oneida, NY)
Chittenango faces off against Westhill
The Bears took on No. 1seed Westhill in a bid for the Section III Class B championship.
Seeking its first section title since the 1970’s, Chittenango had to get through defending Section III Class B champion Westhill.
A year after the Westhill cruised past the Bears by double figures in the 2016-17 section final, Chittenango took it to the Warriors, holding a two-point lead late in the fourth quarter.
Down by two, Westhill tore off a 13-5 run in the final minutes of the contest to ensure their repeat, handing Chittenango a 6658 defeat.
“They made a couple of big shots at the end,” Chittenango coach John Clancy said. “I thought that’s what it would come down to tonight, play at the end.”
The Warriors had five different players in double figures. Sean Dadey led Westhill with 17, followed closely by Zechariah Brown with 16. John Geer added 11 and teammates Owen Matukas and Holden Carroll added 10 each.
Dylan Voutsinas paced Chittenango with a game-high 20 points. Zach Falkenburg added 13 and Matt Lanphear posted 10. Sam Hill had a big night for the Bears, hauling in 11 rebounds to go with 10 points for a doubledouble.
Westhill held the normally potent Chittenango sharpshooters to a collected 2-of-17 from beyond the arc.
“You could almost point to that for the difference in the game,” Clancy said.
Sam Hill got the Bears on the scoreboard first with a bucket down low. Westhill answered with a hoop from John Geer. Matt Lanphear scored next for Chittenango before Westhill went on a 7-2 run, capped by a Geer 3-pointer, for a 9- 4 lead. Things appeared to get even worse for Chittenango when Dylan Voutsinas picked up his second foul midway through the first, but instead of heading to the bench, Voutsinas teamed with Falkenburg to score the next 10 points for the Bears to close out the first 14-11.
The Bears built on that ad- vantage in the second quarter on a Falkenburg and-1 play to take a four-point advantage a minute into the second quarter. Sean Dadey answered with a 3-pointer for Westhill to keep
things tight. Back-to-back jumpers fromLanphear and Voutsinas put Chittenango up 21-16, but Westhill closed the half on a 10-point run, buoyed by two long-range makes by Owen Matukas and Geer.
Trailing by five coming out of the half, the Bears cut into the Westhill lead in the opening minutes of the third, finally breaking through to take the lead when Falkenburg hit Burgan inside for 34-33 Chittenango lead with 3:40 remaining. Matukas hit a pair of free throws to put Westhill back up 35-34. In a back-and-forth affair, the teams shared a tie three times in last two minutes and twenty seconds of the quarter. Ryan Gilmartin and Geer each scored to put Westhill up by two, but each time, Voutsinas was there for the Bears with an answer to keep things knotted up. Lanphear knocked down a foul line jumper to put Chittenango up 4240 in the waning moments of the third, but Westhill’s Holden Carroll answered with a hoop of his own to keep it tied at 42-42 heading into the final quarter.
Falkenburg scored first in the fourth on a lay-in for the Bears, but Matukas hit an elbow jumpshot for Westhill. Hill scored on an offensive board and put-back for the next Bear hoop, but again, Westhill had the answer, this time in the form of a Zechariah Brown 3-ball to put Wes- thill up 49-46. Westhill extended its lead on a pair of foul shots from Dadey for its next score and a 51- 46 edge. Paul Wood came up with a huge 3-pointer off a Voutsinas assist on the ensuing Chittenango possession to make it a one-possession game with 3:28 left. Then, Falkenburg drewcontact on a drive to the hoop, knocking down a pair from the charity stripe to tie the game at 51-51. Chittenango took a 53-51 lead with 2:45 remaining in the contest when Hill muscled through a foul to hit a shot in the paint. It was the last lead the Bears would enjoy as Westhill tied it on a pair of free throws by Dadey before closing the contest on a 13-5 run for its second section championship in as many years and on to the regional round of play.
Chittenango bids farewell to a senior class Clancy credited for taking the program to a place pundits did not expect the Bears to make it to.
“You talk about the alternate emotions of being incredibly disappointed and incredibly proud. They have done everything I have ever asked them to do. We were good enough to win this game, but we just did not,” Clancy said. “Profoundly disappointing, but those are a wonderful bunch of kids that have taken Chittenango basketball to a lot of places it has never been.”