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Experience wins out

Lady Hillbillies top Lady Wildcats for Class B-1 title

OBSERVER Photo by Ron Szot Fredonia’s Hannah Cybart (4) puts up a shot over Depew’s Tess Borgosz (22) during the Section VI, Class B-1 girls basketball final on Sunday at Buffalo State.

BUFFALO — Down 10-0 in the early moments of the first quarter of the Section VI, Class B-1 girls basketball final, Fredonia head coach Carol Zirkle called a time out.

And her message to her players was pretty simple.

“I told them that we were OK and that we have done this before,” Zirkle said. “We’ve been down 14 before and have come back and won. We knew we could do it, we just had to believe, execute the offense, run the floor and execute the game plan.”

The No. 6 Lady Hillbillies (18-6) heeded that advice en route to claiming the program’s first Sectional title since 2004 with a 54-49 come-from-behind win over top-seeded Depew (17-6) Sunday afternoon at Buffalo State.

“These girls wanted a blue patch so bad,” Zirkle said of the award given to the winner of each class. “They were tired of red and I’m tired of red.”

OBSERVER Photo by Ron Szot Members of the Fredonia girls basketball team react, along with head coach Carol Zirkle, far left, to a play late in the Section VI, Class B-1 girls basketball final against Depew at Buffalo State, on Sunday.

Down 43-38 heading into the fourth quarter, senior Hannah Cybart took over on the offensive end while a switch to the triangle-and-two on the defensive side of the ball helped the Lady Hillbillies complete the comeback to advance to the overall Class B final on Wednesday at 4:30 p.m., where they will face Class B-2 winner Wilson at Buffalo State.

“Hannah just took the game into her own hands at that point and she just went and did what she had to do,” Zirkle said.

Cybart scored nine of her game-high 28 points over the game’s final eight minutes, including Fredonia’s final seven points while on the other end of the floor, the Lady Hillbillies held the Lady Wildcats to just six points in the fourth quarter.

“We were playing the same defense for the first five minutes (of the fourth quarter) and then we switched to the triangle-and-two the last three minutes,” Zirkle said. “But for the first five it was just our regular defense, then we threw a different look at them.

“In practice it looked pretty terrible,” Zirkle added of the triangle-and-two. “And I thought they went after the rebounds really well and then we really had to secure the ball at the end and that’s what they did.”

A basket by Cybart with 44.2 seconds left put the Lady Hillbillies up 52-48, before Brianna Dotterweich converted one of two free throws to cut the lead to 52-49. Zoya Katta then went to the line with a chance to put Fredonia up by five with 19.4 seconds left, but she was unable to convert either of her chances at the charity stripe, leaving Depew with a shot at a game-tying 3-pointer.

Katie Price, however, made sure Depew did not get the chance to tie the game, as she swatted away Brooke Whalen’s 3-point attempt with under 10 seconds to play.

“I thought Katie Price’s block at the end was a big one,” Zirkle said. “We just had to keep playing strong and play together and I thought all week they were very focused at practice and they’ve just been working so hard.”

From there, Cybart sank a pair of free throws to give Fredonia the cushion it needed and when the clock hit zero, the Lady Hillbillies were finally able to celebrate a Sectional title at Buffalo State.

“I think it was just the experience of coming back from so many deficits,” Zirkle said of what allowed her team to come from behind Sunday. “We’ve started off down quite a bit. Against Franklinville at home we were down like 14-2 or 14-0 and we came back and won that game. So they know that they just had to come back and play, because there was a lot of time left in the game.”

The Lady Wildcats jumped out to their 10-0 lead in the first quarter thanks to four points each from Tess Borgosz and Dotterweich. But from there, the Lady Hillbillies began to play like they knew they could and what was a 10-0 deficit went down to 12-6 at the end of the first frame.

“I felt like we had a lot of confidence coming in,” Zirkle said. “So it was a little surprising that we started off down so much, but they’re an experienced group and we’ve been (at Buffalo State) so much and they’ve played so many games that there was no panic on the bench.”

Fredonia scored the first six points of the second quarter to tie the game 12-all with 4:52 remaining before the break, but it was unable to pull ahead until a 3-pointer by Cybart with 2:41 to go put the Lady Hillbillies ahead 19-17. However, the Lady Wildcats scored the final seven points of the first half to take a 24-19 lead into the break.

Five points from Cybart and buckets by Hannah Gullo and Morgan St. George helped the Lady Hillbillies tie the game 28-all with 4:37 left in the third quarter, setting up a back-and-fourth final half of the third stanza, before once again, the Lady Wildcats were able to pull ahead by five, 43-38.

Dotterweich scored six of her team-high 15 points in the third while Tess Borgosz, a 6-foot, 1-inch senior center, added four of her 12 points during the final four minutes of the third quarter.

“Brianna Dotterweich stepped up and had a lot of points (Sunday), but our focus was on stopping Borgosz and (Aviance) Clark. And we knew Borgosz could be good, but taking their biggest threats away was our focus.”

And the Lady Hillbillies did just what Zirkle wanted them to do in the fourth quarter, as Clark had only a 3-pointer while Borgosz was unable to find the basket.

“We were trying to double-down every time (Tess Borgosz) got the ball,” Zirkle said. “And we were trying to box her out and most of the time we did a great job and that was the difference in the game. She had 26 rebounds in their last game and I don’t know what she had (Sunday), but we were trying to keep her down to less than 15.

“And I thought we did a great job on Aviance Clark,” Zirkle added. “I don’t know how many points she had, but she had been averaging close to 20 per game.”

Aside from switching to the triangle-and-two over the game’s final three minutes, it was what the Lady Hillbillies were able to do during the previous 29 minutes that helped them claim their first Section VI title in 13 years.

“The thing is, our goal was to run and run and run to get (Depew) tired out so they didn’t have anything left for the fourth quarter,” Zirkle said. “And I think that game plan was successful and I think that’s why (Depew) struggled in the fourth quarter. It wasn’t because we did anything spectacular on defense, I think they were just tired and that made it a lot harder for them to make the shots because they were exhausted. And that’s why I subbed more regularly. The focus was to make it so we weren’t that tired in the fourth quarter so we could hit our shots. And I thought if we raced the floor, we would have more open looks at the basket, because (Borgosz) is big and she made it hard to get shots off at the basket.”

Aside from her game-high 28 points, Cybart finished with a team-high 16 rebounds while Price had nine points, Katta added six points and six rebounds, Grace Morrison hauled down eight boards and Gullo chipped in seven points for the Lady Hillbillies, who shot 19 of 68 from the field on the afternoon.

“We’ll take anybody scoring 28 points any day,” Zirkle said. “Whoever is feeling it. Other people were shooting, they just weren’t hitting (their shots), but I think the key for (Hannah Cybart) was when she started driving and getting some inside buckets. That made her relax and then I think she was able to hit some outside buckets. The other girls had a lot of opportunities, but they didn’t fall for them (Sunday). But that’s OK, because they will fall for them on Wednesday.”

NOTES: Wednesday’s matchup between Fredonia and Wilson (20-3) will mark the third-straight year in which the two teams have faced one another in the Sectional playoffs. The Lady Hillbillies defeated the Lakewomen in the Class B-2 semifinals in 2015, 60-46, and again in the same game last year, 58-56.

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