WOW.
It was a light day, I guess. Could’ve went to OCC, where there were 6 regional games. A lot of dandies, from what I heard. Would’ve been great to watch, even though no way in hell my phone would’ve survived. Decided to roll with Oneonta like initially planned though to catch 3 games: C girls, D girls, D boys. I’m glad I made that decision.
We’ll talk about the games first. I won’t give a rundown here – they were in the tweets. If you want the rundown, refer to Twitter. What I’d like to talk about is the support these communities showed their teams, and damn it, it was just loud. Great environment. I’ve already said it twice, and I’ll say it more: Cooperstown/Harpursville (C girls) was probably the loudest I’ve ever heard a gym get for a Class C/D basketball game. With how back and forth it was, and the amount of people there (due to proximity and ease of travel – keep that in mind, Section 3), Oneonta’s gym was raucous. The “guest” (Cooperstown) is actually closer to Oneonta than Harpursville HS, but even for Harpursville, it’s just a simple drive up 88. Cooperstown had a whole 20 minutes to travel, and the Hall of Fame may have even shut down judging by the amount of Redskins that were in the stands. I see both ends of the argument about large-school vs. small-school, coming from a smaller school and being immersed in the large school life. One thing I will say is that when a smaller school makes it to this level, their community will truly get behind them. It’s a great thing to see. Same with Oriskany/Franklin. The “guest” (Oriskany) really felt like the guest: The O-Zone didn’t exactly come to perform, and with their stellar cheerleading squad (yeah, just complimented cheerleaders) at a state competition in Rochester (#YouGoGlenCoco), the O-Redskin crowd lacked the enthusiasm that the C-Redskin crowd had the game before. Not to mention… Franklin’s crowd came out amped. Franklin is in the Oneonta area, and you could tell with the crowd representation. With Oriskany winning that game, it truly felt like they won a road game. The last game between New York Mills & Marathon lacked the drama and excitement that the first two brought, for the most part. It had its moments – but even when Marathon started the game on a 7-2 spurt, the outcome was never truly in question to me, and it was easily the most quiet/emptiest of the three games. It had its share of funny moments, as expressed on Twitter. Marathon never quit, and that is to their credit. With NYM up 51-31, that could’ve been the case. However, they did claw back and get it to single digits, only to have NYM win by 13. At Oneonta, it was Section III 2, Section IV 1. All-in-all, out of 10 Section III champs, 5 have advanced to the Final 4. In AA, A, and B, there will be 1 apiece, with C-NS girls, Ludden & Westhill boys respectively. Class C went 0 for 2, and Class D will send both NYM boys and Oriskany girls to the promised land.
Now quickly to Oneonta State itself. Over the years, I’ve been to enough neutral sites. For as long as I’ve known the difference, I’ve had a beef with Section III about neutral sites. Generally speaking, their love of keeping it close to the ‘Cuse. However, I frankly think they don’t use sense. Whether it’s have a game at a crappy Baldwinsville HS gym when there are better within a 10 minute radius, or have games such as Herkimer/Cooperstown or Mohawk/WCV at OCC, there’s some lack of sense issues. Section IV has this one right. When I grade neutral sites, I think of a lot of things. Parking, attitude of staff, working room, freedom of movement, seating (enough, but not too much), condition of court itself, concession stand/price of goods. Those are just a few. Oneonta’s gym isn’t the most comfortable to sit in as a 6’6″ spectator when it’s packed (trust me, I’ve been there), but that’s the only knock I have. Maybe the selection at the concession stand, but the price makes up for it. Hell, the stuff at their concession stand was the cheapest I’ve seen since the regular season. OCC overcharged. The Dome… well, obviously. Oneonta’s was great for a tight budget. There’s enough parking to find a spot somewhere within walking distance. The seating amount is perfect. You can easily fit a couple grand in there, but when that group makes noise, the place gets rockin’. Pretty large gym, but it has a small gym feel to it. Great atmosphere. It’s a little bit bigger version of HCCC (which is horribly underutilized in Section III). Section IV and NYSPHSAA, you hit the nail on the head with this one.
Best Moment: The last 50 seconds of Cooperstown/Harpursville. Awesome. Sumer Murdock hitting the game-tying trey w/ :45.0 seconds left, and the lid blew off the building. Miranda Drummond hitting the go-ahead and ultimately game-winning trey just over 7 seconds later, and the lid blew all the way to Owego. Sucks that someone had to lose that game.
MVP of the Day: The aforementioned Miranda Drummond. Mind you, right before she hit that 3, she jammed her finger pretty good. Maybe the sound was worse than the pain, but I was 50 feet away from where she got a hand in the passing lane and poked a tough chest pass away, and I heard the pop. Nasty. She was out for a few seconds, came back in, and nailed the three. Those were the last 3 of her 26 points on the day, scoring nearly 60% of her team’s 45 points in a 2 point W. That’s clutch. Honorable mention goes to Jordan Beers of Franklin. Even in a loss, it’s well-deserved. Franklin doesn’t get there without her, and they don’t look competitive in that game without her either. Franklin scored 46, and she had 30. Probably had 4 or 5 assists on the team’s 6 or 7 FGs that weren’t hers as well. She had a part in just about every Franklin point. Oriskany knew Beers was their offense, and they geared for it. They just couldn’t stop it. Impressive.
What I’ll Take Away: 2 things. #1: Damn, Mike Adey really complimented officials pretty much the whole way. I guess he only got on them for the first 500 wins. #2: who cares how small your school is? Get the community behind you, and you can still rock the house!
Until next time, MVT out.