
WAVERLY RALLIES, BUT FALLS SHORT IN CLASS B SEMI AT OWEGO
By: Tim Taylor | Waverly Athletics | March 2, 2022 | Photo courtesy Tim Taylor
OWEGO — Third-seeded Waverly clawed its way out of an 11-0 hole, but
came up short in the latter stages of a 47-40 Section IV Class B boys
basketball semi-final setback against second-seeded Owego here
Wednesday.
“It comes down to making the most of your
opportunities,” Waverly coach Lou Judson said. “We had a lot of
opportunities tonight. We just didn't capitalize. Even when they were up
five, six points, we were never out of it, but you know, you miss a
lay-up here, you miss a wide-open three and you don't capitalize and
they come down and get on the free throw line, what have you?”
“Obviously,
it was a great start because we were scoring early with our stuff, but I
thought Lou (Judson) and Waverly, I think they did a fantastic job of
kind of really going to this match-up zone that we were trying to
navigate, and I thought they did a great job with it,” Owego coach Chris
Evans said. “That's what I told them after the game. They're tough.
They play hard and they're well-coached. That's a good squad with really
good guards and obviously great outside shooting. They stayed in the
game by making threes.”
The Wolverines closed the gap to 31-30 on a Brennan Traub 3-pointer with 1:19 remaining in the third quarter.
However,
that’s as close as they would get as John Bangel’s buzzer-beater from
underneath gave the Indians a 33-30 lead heading into the final frame.
The
6-foot-7 junior scored the next three baskets, giving Owego a 39-30
advantage with just under 4 1/2 minutes remaining in the game.
“You
can never just chip away and get it down to two or three late in the
game, but we battled hard,” Judson said. “Defensively, we played about
as good as we could play tonight. We held a team to 47 points. I
would've figured us averaging 65 points on the year that we're going to
score more than 50.”
Davis Croft drained a three-ball at 3:32 and
Joey Tomasso added a free throw moments later. John and Joe Bangel
countered with one basket apiece, then Brady Blauvelt responded with a
steal and lay-up to trim the lead to 43-36 as the contest neared its
end.
The Indians went 4-for-10 at the free throw line in the last
minute while Waverly went 4-for-6, but neither team could make a field
goal.
“It was tough to try to navigate that match-up zone. We
finally actually went to some man-to-man plays in that third and fourth
quarter, which helped us a lot, “ Evans said. “We were kind of setting a
high-ball screen early and letting (Drew) Tavelli kind of create, then
we changed things up a little bit and then that helps us.”
The game didn’t look like much of a battle at the onset as Owego ran out to an 11-0 advantage.
After
a handful of missed opportunities by both teams, the Indians would
break the ice on a steal and layup from Tavelli, and then another basket
by Tavelli following a turnover off a deflected pass.
The junior guard would then sandwich a trey between baskets by Ethan Nichols and Joe Bangel to finish off the game-opening run.
“You
get these situations where the lack of experience — and I say that,
I've got a lot of seniors — but our season was cut short last year with
COVID, so a lot of the games were meaningless,” Judson said. “We put
ourselves in a position to play semifinals and we just lack a little bit
of experience. Maybe a little bit of nerves had something to do with
it.
“Got down 11-0 to begin the game and we battled back. We were
only down one at the half and we didn't play all that well, so I liked
our chances.”
Three-balls would factor into the Wolverines’ rally
as Tomasso halted the outburst with a three and Liam Traub followed
with another.
John Bangel and Tomasso traded buckets to end the opening quarter with Owego up, 13-8.
Waverly
opened the second period with a 9-3 run on treys from Liam and Brennan
Traub, and Jay Pipher, the latter three-ball giving the visitors a 17-16
edge with 2:21 remaining in the half.
A Joe Bangel bucket gave the lead back to the Indians at the break, 18-17.
Tomasso
put Waverly back ahead just 31 seconds into the third quarter, but the
Bangel twins combined for four consecutive points to make it 22-19 just
under two minutes into the period.
Baskets by Tomasso and Brennan
Traub made it 23-22 in favor of the Wolverines, then Joe Bangel and
Brennan Traub swapped baskets, which gave Waverly its final lead of the
night, 25-24.
The Indians’ Ryan Pryor got open underneath and
Tavelli hit a jumper. Croft scored to keep it close with Waverly down a
point, but John Bangel and Palmer scored consecutive baskets to make it
31-27 before Brennan Traub’s three and John Bangel’s buzzer-beater made
it 33-30 at quarter’s end.
“Brad had a bunch of open threes that
he'd hit the other night and they just didn't go in today, but you know,
we stayed with it and stayed with it, and like all year when we're not
shooting well and not scoring like we’d like, our defense was good
enough, and our rebounding, especially in the second half was tremendous
with John and Joe Bangle,” Evans said.
Holding a team which
scores 60-plus points per game to 40 says a lot about Owego’s defense,
but Evans noted the offense deserves part of the credit as well.
“It
also says something about our ball control offense,” he said. “because
we work at the ball and we run a lot of sets. It cuts down on their
possessions. I thought, even in the second half, the big thing at
halftime that we talked about with our transition defense, we weren't
building out early enough. We made that adjustment a little bit, so we
built out a little sooner and we missed one guy over here, on the right
wing … but other than that I thought we did a great job in transition
defense well.”
John and Joe Bangel scored 15 and 12 points, respectively, for Owego. Tavelli contributed nine and Palmer added six.
Judson was impressed with the Wolverines’ effort against the 6-foot-7 twins.
“We
did a very good job on them,” he said. “It’s just that at certain
moments tonight, at key moments, they were able to find a way to get a
basket for them. I don't know what they had combined, but we were hoping
to keep them both combined together 25 or less. They're very good.
They've got one more year left, they’re just going to get better, but I
thought we did an excellent job on them, and I think we did an excellent
job defensively.
“It was not our defense, it was our offense that was lacking tonight,” added Judson.
Tomasso
paced Waverly with 11 points, six rebounds, two steals, and one blocked
shot, while Brennan Traub scored 10 points, and Liam Traub tacked on
seven points, and seven rebounds.
Senior Brady Blauvelt had five
boards and two steals for the Wolverines, and senior Davis Croft grabbed
six rebounds, and blocked one shot.
“They did an unbelievable
job guarding Joey,” Judson said. “They knew where he was at all times in
the zone. Other guys for us had to step up and shoot the ball well, and
we just didn't do it tonight.”
“I saw him score 16
first-quarter points against Susquehanna Valley. He's such a good
athlete,” Evans said. “He's so good with the ball. He’s just really
solid, and we threw a lot of different people at him, and tried to deny
him the ball. If he gave it up, we were trying to make him work really,
really hard to get it back. We were in total denial. You can't help.
You're denying him because he's their man. He's their guy. I think even
in the second half he got away from us a little bit. We made him work
for it.”
“It's a tough pill to swallow, but I think we're just as
good of a basketball team as them, but they proved they're better than
us tonight,” Judson said.
Judson applauded the dedication and sacrifices which his seniors have committed to the program.
“These
seniors have been through this program a long, long time, and I feel
bad for them. This senior class has been through more than any team I've
ever had with COVID and not being able to play as much last year. I
want to give a shout-out to them.
“I really appreciate all their
hard work and their dedication to the program, and they're going to be
very successful in life because they came every day, worked very hard,
as you saw tonight,” added Judson.
Waverly wraps up its season at 14-7.
Owego
advances to the Class B championship game against top-seeded Seton
Catholic Sunday at 6 p.m. at Visions Veterans Memorial Arena.
