The ‘Billies saw their season come to an end on the Buffalo State University floor on Saturday with a 48-37 defeat at the hands of the East Aurora Blue Devils in the Section VI, Class A2 girls basketball semifinals.

“I’m so proud of what we did,” Fredonia head coach Brianne Flowers said, acknowledging this was her most successful season as a varsity head coach. “We did what nobody thought we were going to do. Nobody thought we were going to be at Buff. State today.”

Fredonia (12-11, 7-seed) scored the game’s first points on a layup from Madelyn Polhamus, just over a minute into the contest. The problem for Fredonia is it did not score again for over eight minutes.

East Aurora (9-13, 6-seed) scored 12 straight points to close the first quarter with a double-digit lead. Just over a minute into the second quarter, the East Aurora lead was up to 14 points, 16-2, before Fredonia finally scored again.

OBSERVER Photo by Braden Carmen Fredonia's Juliana Snyder looks to pass while driving the baseline.

“We weren’t able to turn them over as much as we were looking for in our press,” said Flowers. “… It also didn’t help that we had a lot of looks, but we just couldn’t buy a bucket.”

Juliana Snyder broke Fredonia’s scoring drought with a 3-pointer. Anna Delcamp followed with a layup to pull back within single digits, but East Aurora scored the next five points to go back up by 14.

Fredonia scored five points in the final 20 seconds of the first half, capped by a Snyder 3-pointer from the corner with four seconds left to pull back within single digits at the break, down 23-14.

“I really liked the momentum that we gained into the half,” Flowers said. “I told the girls going in that we had the opportunity. Basketball is a game of runs, they went on theirs, we went on ours, and we had another half.”

East Aurora began the second half on an 8-1 run over the first 90 seconds to increase its lead to 31-15.

Faced with its largest deficit of the contest, Fredonia responded better than it had all afternoon. The ‘Billies scored six straight points over a two-minute stretch, then followed with seven of the next ten points, including a bank shot from Anna Delcamp with five seconds left, to enter the fourth quarter down by only six, 34-28.

Fredonia cut its deficit in half with a 3-pointer from Naomi Muck with 5:50 left in the game. After a 16-point deficit early in the second half, Fredonia was suddenly down just three points.

“(Muck) is our backbone. She might not always show it on the stat sheet, but the girls rely on her presence,” Flowers said. “She gives 110% every time she’s on the floor. … She really was that momentum swing for us.”

With the game suddenly in the balance, East Aurora immediately responded with nine straight points. Ella Soroka scored on the first possession after Muck’s 3-pointer.

Then, a few minutes later, after an offensive rebound kept a possession alive, Addie Miller banked a 3-pointer from in front of her bench to cap off a 9-0 run. Her shot put East Aurora back up by a dozen, 43-31, with 3:25 left to play.

“We chipped away. We just fell apart right at the end. We couldn’t get the stuff to fall,” Flowers said.

Miller later banked in another 3-pointer from the same spot as East Aurora began to pull away. She added an exclamation point on a layup off a Hail Mary football style outlet pass for her team’s final points in the victory, 48-37.

Fredonia was led by Madelyn Polhamus with 12 points on the afternoon. Juliana Snyder had 11 points, including three 3-pointers. Polhamus also had four rebounds and four steals, while Snyder had five rebounds and two steals.

Five players scored for Fredonia on the afternoon. Fredonia’s leading scorer on the season, Cecelia Tonelli, was not with the team on Saturday.

East Aurora was led by Miller with 20 points, while Soroka added 13 points. Caelan Legg had nine points. East Aurora had five scorers on the afternoon and five 3-pointers as a team.

Up next, East Aurora faces Depew on Wednesday at 8 p.m., back at Buffalo State University.

Fredonia does not graduate any players from this season’s team. Flowers hopes that Saturday’s trip to Buffalo State was just the start of great things to come for her group.

“The potential that we have going into next season, I’m really looking forward to,” Flowers said. “They now got a taste. … Hopefully that feeds into next year.” FREDONIA (37)

Russo 0 0 0, Burrows 0 0 0, Muck 2 1 6, Delcamp 2 0 4, Buckley 1 1 4, MPolhamus 5 2 12, Snyder 3 2 11, NPolhamus 0 0 0, Totals 13 6 37.

EAST AURORA (48)

Sharlock 0 0 0, Beiter 2 0 4, Miller 8 1 20, Soroka 6 0 13, Legg 3 2 9, Seifert 0 0 0, Anderson 0 0 0, Stiles 0 0 0, Franklin 1 0 2, Buccieri 0 0 0, Totals 20 3 48.

3-point goals — Muck, Buckley, Snyder 3, Miller 3, Soroka, Legg.

Fredonia 2 12 14 9 — 37

East Aurora 12 11 11 14 — 48