Hammond, H-D Girls Advance To D Finals

CANTON — Building a big halftime lead worked out for only one of the teams at the Section 10 girls basketball Class D semifinals Tuesday night at SUNY Canton.

Defending champion Chateaugay held a 25-point lead at halftime and a 17-point lead going into the fourth quarter, only to be stunned by a Hammond rally as the Red Devils won the first semifinal 59-56.

When Hermon-DeKalb built an 18-point lead on Madrid-Waddington by halftime the Demons did not get too comfortable. They had watched Hammond’s comeback while waiting for their game to begin. But there was no comeback in the second game as the Demons won 43-31.

The top-seeded Demons (17-2 overall) and No. 3 Hammond (16-4) will meet for the championship at 6:15 p.m. Friday at SUNY Potsdam. Hammond won the first matchup between the Northern Athletic Conference West Division rivals 48-44 on Jan. 25, but the Demons answered with a 43-37 victory Feb. 9.

“Hammond is well-coached, a great basketball team,” Demons coach Steve Morrill said. “They know what they are doing. It will be a hard-fought game that could go either way.”

HAMMOND 59, CHATEAUGAY 56

The outcome looked bleak for Hammond when No. 2 Chateaugay (16-4), which played in the state championship game last year, raced out to an 18-2 lead and built it to 39-14 at one point in the second quarter.

But when the scoreboard read 43-18 at halftime, Hammond was not ready to give up.

“Our coach (Shawn Dack) talked to us and got us all pumped, so we were ready,” Hammond’s Alyssa Crosby said.

The Red Devils opened the second half playing a full-court pressure defense and Chateaugay struggled the entire second half trying to get the ball toward its own basket.

Despite the Bulldogs’ woes, Hammond still trailed by 17 at the end of the third quarter.

“We just wanted to cut into it a little bit,” Dack said. “Cut it to 12 or 13. We did, but we didn’t. We were (down) 17 at the fourth. We felt we played well, but we couldn’t go empty (on possessions). We bailed them out by fouling or not playing solid D.”

Crosby took over the game in the fourth quarter for the Red Devils, scoring 20 of her game-high 35 points as Hammond routed the Bulldogs 26-6 in the final eight minutes.

Hammond cut the deficit to 10 points (50-40), with 4 minutes, 42 seconds left in the game and got it down to five (54-49) with 2:44 left.

A steal and two free throws by Crosby with 1:44 left earned the Red Devils a 54-54 tie.

“We were just ready to come back,” Crosby said. “That’s all we wanted to do.”

Chateaugay took a 56-54 lead when Makayla Fleury hit two free throws with 47.2 seconds left, but Crosby answered eight seconds later with another basket to tie the game.

The Bulldogs missed a shot in the final 10 seconds and Hammond’s Gabby Marshall snatched the rebound.

Marshall got the ball to Crosby and Dack shouted, “Push, Alyssa, push!”

Crosby did exactly that, driving the lane and throwing up a shot as she collided with a Bulldog player. The ball banked into the basket with 1.8 seconds left and Crosby tacked on a free throw for the final point of the contest.

“I didn’t think it was going in,” Crosby said. “I was so surprised.”

Fleury led the Bulldogs with 14 points. Alexis Beach and Courtney Boyea each scored 12 for the Bulldogs, and Hannah Cook tossed in 10.

HERMON-DEKALB 43, MADRID-WADDINGTON 31

The second game was a defensive struggle and some of the Demons’ role players wound up leading the team past No. 4 Madrid-Waddington (14-6).

Like Chateaugay, Hermon-DeKalb got off to a big start, going on a 16-0 run that started early in the first quarter, and building a 21-5 lead.

The key player for the Demons in that spurt was senior center Kelly Williams. Williams, who averaged 7.3 points heading into the game, scored 10 in the first quarter and finished with 16.

“I never get that many points,” Williams said. “I guess we were shooting pretty good.”

Hermon-DeKalb struggled to score in the third quarter and Madrid-Waddington started to cut into the lead. The Demons went 9:38 without scoring when Clarisa Davis put in a 3-point basket with 38 seconds left in the third quarter to put the Demons back up 28-11.

Every time Madrid-Waddington started to get close, it seemed like Davis would hit a big shot. She finished with five 3-pointers and 15 total points.

“There’s no quit,” Yellow Jackets coach Gary Tischler said of his team. “We got within 10 or 11 and they nailed that big three. We’re proud of the effort though.”

Shelby Gausby led the Yellow Jackets with 11 points and Bridget Beldock tossed in 10.

LITTLE FALLS 56, IHC 44

The No. 2 Mounties received 20 points from their 6-foot-2 center Jenna Becker in their Section 3 Class C-1 semifinal win over the No. 6 Cavaliers at Jamesville-DeWitt.

Gen Schoff added 14 points for Little Falls (15-5), which will play the winner of today’s Thousand Islands-Herkimer game in the C-1 final next week at the Carrier Dome in Syracuse.

Briana McClusky led Immaculate Heart (10-10) with 11 points and Erin McClusky grabbed 10 steals.

Senior guard Christine Wright, who led IHC with 11.6 points per game this season, finished with eight points and played limited minutes due to foul trouble.

For highlights of the two Section 10 Class D girls basketball semifinals, including postgame interviews, log on to the Watertown Daily Times website’s Overtime blog at www.watertowndailytimes.com/section/blogs11