Recap of ECS Basketball Class D Semi-Finals
Recap of ECS Basketball Class D Semi-Finals
Despite Strong Attempts to Persevere, Both Both and Girls Teams Suffered Season Ending Losses
EAGLES HUGE THIRD QUARTER COMEBACK NOT ENOUGH AGAINST PANAMA
Looking up from the bottom of the deep, dark hole the Ellicottville boys dug for themselves at the start of their Class D semifinal matchup against #4 seed Panama last Monday evening, it was almost impossible to see a way out for the #1 seed Eagles. And though they mounted a spectacular, fan-pleasing comeback in the third quarter, ultimately the Eagles’ bid for a Section VI title fell short by a 47-36 margin on the hardwood floor at neutral site, Jamestown Community College.
With starting center and top-scorer Gavin Dietrich sidelined by an ankle injury, and with Ellicottville shooters battling nervousness, as well as the tough Panama defense to start the game, more than seven minutes ticked off the clock in the first quarter before the Eagles got their first score - a put-back basket from underneath by senior guard Brad John. John’s shot made the score 17-2, Panama, and only 56 seconds remained in the opening quarter.
“In the first half, I thought we were rushing things a little too much,” explained Eagles Coach David McCann. “One of the things we talked about at halftime was just to settle down and play at our own pace.”
With every basket the Panthers buried in the opening stanza, and with every empty trip up the floor for the Eagles, frustration and a bit of desperation began to mount. Winners of 12 of their last 13 games entering this contest, the Eagles found themselves staring into the void of the end of their season. Shots didn’t fall for them. Passes were intercepted and starters began drawing fouls.
“In the first half, we let the other team force us to make bad decisions,” admitted senior guard Braylon Wyatt. It was a sentiment echoed by twin brother, Caedon Wyatt, the team’s point guard and floor general. “We kept wanting to shoot the three, but as soon as we took it back inside, it helped us a lot and we were able to get to the foul line and shoot a lot of free throws.”
Out of the locker room to start the second half, the Eagles used a “Win one for the Gipper” speech by Coach McCann as the driving force behind a huge, third quarter comeback that all-but erased the 27-11 deficit Ellicottville found itself in at the half.
“We came out firing on all cylinders,” recalled senior guard Gian Nuzzo, who scored seven of his team-high eight points in the epic, third quarter comeback alone. “At halftime, coach gave us a good game plan to change our mindsets and we really came out firing!”
Nuzzo nailed a three-point shot that fired up the Ellicottville crowd and pulled the Eagles to within three points with just under two minutes to play in the third quarter, then Panama called the quick timeout to stop the bleeding; however, the Eagles’ suddenly stingy defense ended up with the ball immediately out of the stoppage in play and Nuzzo found the ball in his hot hands once more. With a strong move to the basket, he drove the lane and convinced a finger-roll layup to drop; and with 50 seconds left in the quarter, the Panthers’ 16-point halftime advantage had blown away, like dust in the wind.
Unfortunately for the Eagles and their fans, however, that’s as good as it ever got.
“Once we started playing our game in the third quarter, we were fine,” McCann explained of his team’s big rally. “But in coming back from that 16-point deficit, we kind of started to run out of gas.”
Out of the timeout between the third and fourth quarters, the Panthers extended their lead, then came up with a quick defensive stop, which led to another quick bucket and in the blink of an eye, Panama’s lead was back in the double digits once more and the dream of a Class D championship was over in EVL.
Post-game, Eagles players pointed with pride to the great season they ended up having - especially after beginning the year with losses in six of their first eight games.
“We faced a lot of adversity this year,” Nuzzo explained. “We had injuries and foul troubles and it took us awhile to get everyone in the right mindset, but we figured out our true identity, turned it around, went on our (8-game) winning streak and won our league. I couldn’t be more proud of the things our team did this year.”
The Eagles finish the 2022-’23 campaign with a 14-8 record overall, including a dominant run from Christmas break until the end of the season, in which Ellicottville prevailed in an impressive 12 of its final 14 games.
LADY EAGLES FALL TO SHERMAN, 29-17
It’s possible that the gremlins who covered the Ellicottville girls’ basket with plexiglass at the start of their Class D semifinal playoff game last Wednesday at Jamestown Community College won’t ever be caught.
In a big-time high school hoops game that featured an unsettling number of missed shots by both teams - think gremlins - the #2 seed Ellicottville Lady Eagles’ magical run toward a Section VI title ended March 1 in a low-scoring, 29-17 defensive slog versus the #3 seed Lady Wildcats of Sherman on the neutral site at JCC.
Time and again throughout the entire game, would-be Ellicottville scorers watched helplessly as their shots bounced inexplicably once, twice, three times off the rim and/or backboard and then dropped harmlessly to the floor. Too often, Ellicottville shots missed everything.
“Our game last year here at JCC was the same thing,” admitted Lady Eagles point guard Dalayla Alexander after the game. “We played here and we just couldn’t hit anything.” Alexander’s assessment was echoed by Ellicottville Coach Tracy Rozler, who added, “We had a lot of shots tonight - they just wouldn’t drop.”
To put the outcome of this game into perspective, the last time the Lady Eagles scored fewer than 20 points in a game was in their season opener on Nov. 29 at Clymer - a 38-18 loss that was avenged on the last night of the regular season by a 21-point Ellicottville victory over the visiting Lady Pirates.
In the 20 games that followed that season-opening loss at Clymer, Ellicottville never scored fewer than 20 points in a game and only scored less than 30 points on just two occasions - both of those games took place on the road and both games were played versus Class B competition.
Defensively, the Lady Eagles did just about everything that could have been expected of them in a game of this magnitude.
While there was no reasonable expectation that they’d stop everything the #3 seeded Lady Wildcats threw at them, the Ellicottville defenders tenaciously repelled the vast majority of Sherman scoring attempts and stood toe-to-toe with their adversary until the final horn sounded.
“We played perfect defense tonight really - we held them to just 29 points,” Rozler reflected after her team’s heart-breaking loss. “They played hard, they played with their hearts and they never gave up - I can’t ask for a better team.”
Once again reinforcing her coach’s evaluation, Alexander talked about the almost surreal feeling of the way neither team could score points, saying, “Keeping them to just 29 points tonight is crazy - and then us scoring just 17 points without hitting a single (three-point shot) in the whole game is pretty crazy, too!”
And just to prove it was not all gloom and doom for the Lady Eagles in this one, it should be noted that Ellicottville actually led this game with about four minutes to go in the first half, as center Ryah Quinn hit on a six-foot jump shot to make the score 8-7, Ellicottville. Later on in the fourth quarter, Ellicottville battled back and cut the Lady Wildcats’ double-digit lead to just a two-score margin, 22-17, with under five minutes left in the game.
So it was that close midway through the final quarter, that a three and a layup would’ve tied the thing for Ellicottville, despite the fact that they trailed for all but about 30 seconds in the game. Unfortunately for Ellicottville, Sherman was the team which scored next - and they scored next after that and then that was all she wrote.
While you could say that the Lady Eagles’ offense completely abandoned them in the biggest game of the year, that would only partially explain the team’s smallest point total in any of the 22 games it played this year. In fact, the Sherman defense proved to be every bit as tenacious and unyielding as Coach Rozler’s girls - plus a little bit more.
Speaking on how effectively the Lady Wildcats played defense, Rozler explained, “We had to rely on outside shots (when we could get them) and they just weren’t falling. When we passed it on the inside, we couldn’t hang on to the ball. They would strip it from us, or we either couldn’t catch it or it’d go off of our leg.”
Leading up to their semifinal appearance at JCC last week, the Lady Eagles had been on fire, winning 14 of their final 15 contests, including a complete beat-down of league competition in the Cattaraugus-Chautauqua Athletic Association’s East 2 division. In 10 CCAA East 2 league games this season, the Ellicottville ladies were a perfect 10-0 and racked up nearly twice as many points per game as their competitors. On average, the Lady Eagles offense dropped 52.3 points per game on opponents, while their stingy, smothering defense allowed only a measly 26.4 points per game against.
For those watching from the stands this season, many of the Lady Eagles’ league games were effectively ‘over’ by halftime, and in some of those games, the contest had all but been decided before the opposing coach could call their first timeout of the game.
The Lady Eagles’ success in 2022-’23 was powered in large part by senior forward Allison Rowland and the junior floor general, Alexander. Rowland was equally a threat on both sides of the ball and was at the heart of her team’s ball-hawking defense this season. Rowland’s scoring mark of 174 points trailed only Alexander for the team lead this season and ranked her #17 in all of Class D for scoring in 2022-’23. The senior forward was the team’s leading rebounder this season, and with 166 boards pulled down, she owned the 6th best tally for all Class D rebounders.
The junior point-scorer Alexander led all Lady Eagles in 2022-’23 with 224 points - almost half of which came on a whopping, 36 three-point shots! Her points total was the 12th highest in all of Class D this year, but more impressively, her tally of 102 steals qualified Alexander as the second-best ball thief in the conference this year.
Center Ryah Quinn was the end of the line for many opponents’ scoring chances in 2022-’23, as the defensive-minded senior in the middle of the paint hauled in 146 rebounds and blocked 12 shots. Those totals put her in 11th place among all players in Class D for rebounds and 12th place for blocks, respectively.
Forward Natalee Leiper had a strong sophomore campaign, scoring 140 points and hauling in 86 rebounds. Leiper also added 41 steals to her impressive stats totals on the season.
Guards Addison John and Ande Northrup tied for fourth place on the team in scoring with 98 points. A rock-solid, all-around contributor in every game she appeared in, John filled out the stat sheets on her line with 44 rebounds, 34 steals and 32 assists.
Just a freshman in 2022-’23, Northrup served notice to the entire CCAA that she will be a long-range scoring threat and front-line defender for years to come, as the young guard knocked down 19 three-point shots. That total was the 16th most three’s scored by any shooter in Class D this year.