OBSERVER Photo by Tim Frank Warriors’ Jaxson Ross shoots a 3-pointer during Thursday’s Section VI Class B1 semifinal at Buffalo State University.

BUFFALO — With 1:28 left on the clock, up 57-46, Salamanca’s Jaxson Ross took a 3-pointer in front of his bench. As the ball fell through the net, he backtracked into a sea of teammates to celebrate.

But it wasn’t just those three points that Salamanca could celebrate Thursday. After the final 88 seconds ticked off the clock, the Warriors earned a trip to the sectional championship game for a third straight year.

No. 1 Salamanca came out firing and blew out the fourth-seeded Akron Tigers early with a 22-5 first quarter en route to a 62-48 victory in a Section VI Class B1 semifinal boys basketball game at Buffalo State University.

“It feels amazing, actually,” Salamanca senior leading scorer Lucus Brown said of earning another trip to the finals. “Being a senior for the Salamanca Warriors program, it means a lot. I’ve improved in this program by a lot, and I just want to continue to make a journey, make a run out of this season to get another blue patch with my guys.”

A year ago, when Salamanca last took the floor at Buff State, the Warriors fell behind early and could not climb all the way back. The Warriors eventually fell to the Fredonia Hillbillies 58-54.

It didn’t take long to see that this Salamanca team would not suffer the same fate Thursday.

Salamanca scored seven of the game’s first nine points in less than three minutes of action, from three different players, before an Akron timeout. Less than two minutes later, the Salamanca lead ballooned to 13-2, just beyond the halfway point of the first quarter.

“We came out hot. Our whole philosophy was energy, right from the start,” Brown said.

Akron called another timeout, but it did not make much of a difference. After a 3-pointer for the Tigers, the Warriors responded with a 9-0 run to close the opening quarter. Salamanca led 22-5 after the first period of play and maintained a double-digit lead for the entire second quarter. The Warriors led 34-14 at halftime and the result was never in doubt the rest of the way.

“One of our core principles as a program is we want to take our stuff to the other team. We don’t ever want to react to what they are doing to us,” Salamanca head coach Adam Bennett said. “We want to try to force them to react to what we’re doing to them.”

Basketball is a game of runs, but Thursday, Akron’s first run did not come until the second half. By that point, the damage had already been done. The Tigers never got back to within single digits after the 9-0 Warriors run to close the first quarter.

Brown led the Warriors with 23 points, including eight points in the opening quarter. Maddox Isaac added six points in the first quarter, as well.

Brown was double-teamed nearly the entire night, which led to balanced scoring from his teammates. Brown has averaged more than 20 points per game in all three seasons the Warriors have earned a trip to the sectional title game.

“Teams dial in on me. I know I’m going to get double-teamed. I just drive to get my teammates open and that spaces it out for me,” Brown said.

Six Warriors scored on the night. Isaac finished with 10 points, while Ross, Cory Holleran and Jacob Herrick each had 9 points.

Bennett said after a loss to Fredonia earlier this season, “Honestly, that’s the best thing that can happen to us. We’ve been going for a long time, playing well, and we’re going to find out how quickly we learn from adversity like this.”

Lesson learned.

Referencing that conversation earlier in the year, Bennett said he has learned, “We’ve got some tough kids.” He called the past six practices “the best six practices in eight years I’ve ever seen as the head coach here.”

Bennett said that as a group, his team talks about life lessons and how you learn about who you are through adversity, like his team faced at Fredonia earlier this season and against Fredonia on the same Buffalo State University floor a year ago in the title game.

“You learn more from losses than you do from wins,” Bennett said. “These guys have responded in a great way. We’ve got to continue to respond, continue to remember what happened that night and let that fuel us as we move forward.”

Salamanca will take on No. 3 Newfane at 1:45 p.m. Saturday back at Buff State. The Panthers beat No. 2 Olmsted 49-48 in Thursday’s second semifinal.

“It’s a championship game and if we lose, we’ve got some guys that have their careers end,” Bennett said. “… All of these have been a part of these moments, in this great stretch of basketball that they’ve earned. We’re going to fight as hard as we can to keep that stretch of basketball going, no matter who we play, no matter where we play, no matter what the situation.”

Even as dominant of a victory as the Warriors had Thursday, after being the top-ranked team in all of Class B throughout the majority of the season, it all comes down to one more game to be a sectional champion again.

“We want it more this season, so we’ve got to get it,” Brown said.

ARKON (48)

BlGerstung 2 0 6, Hill 1 2 4, Romesser 3 0 9, Lamont 2 6 11, BeGerstung 0 4 4, Boston 0 0 0, Leach 0 0 0, Patterson 0 0 0, Bentley 1 0 2, Abrams 2 0 4, Haak 0 0 0, Brooks 3 0 6, Jonathan 1 0 2. Totals 15 12 48.

SALAMANCA (62)

Herrick 4 0 9, Bradley 0 0 0, Isaac 5 0 10, Gillman 0 0 0, Crouse 0 0 0, ABrown 1 0 2, Ross 3 0 9, LBrown 10 3 23, Holleran 3 2 9, Winship 0 0 0, Trietley 0 0 0, Whitcomb 0 0 0, Austin 0 0 0. Totals 26 5 62.

3-point goals–Gerst 2, Romesser 3, Lamont, Herrick, Ross 3, Holleran.

Akron 5 9 17 17 — 48

Salamanca 22 12 13 15 — 62