The No. 6 Cortland boys basketball team hung right with No. 11 Utica Academy of Science for around 28 minutes Friday at Cortland Jr./Sr. High School in a competitive and physical battle, but the Atoms went on a 13-2 run the final four minutes of play to beat the Purple Tigers 55-41 in the first round of the Section III Class A tournament. UAS moves on to face No. 3 Bishop Grimes on Tuesday.
The difference was three with four minutes left in regulation, with Cortland trailing UAS 42-39. The Atoms then increased their lead to five and a 3-pointer with 2:45 left made it 47-39 and forced the Purple Tigers to call a timeout.
Cortland looked to trim the deficit in the final minutes and got up some decent looks, but UAS kept the Purple Tigers off the scoreboard, forced turnovers and scored timely buckets. With the Atoms gaining all momentum, they found themselves up 53-39 with 55 seconds left.
Damauri Bell drove the lane and scored Cortland’s first basket in over three minutes with just 40 seconds left, but the Purple Tigers weren’t able to put together any more offense with time against them.
Cortland was outscored 20-9 in the fourth quarter, with UAS big man Akol Machteng scoring eight of his team’s points to help seal the win.
UAS ran a full-court press all game against Cortland, forcing the Purple Tigers into tough situations and creating a chaotic pace of play that benefited the Atoms.
“They created a lot of chaos for sure,” Cortland head coach Jeremy Milligan said. “I think that kind of unsettled play. We have some great athletes and we have some good kids with a high basketball IQ, but the majority of our guys do not play basketball year-round. I think to be able to play in a chaotic environment, you have to have had that experience a lot. It’s tough to teach chaos in practice and I think they just created some unsettled play.”
Cortland, for the most part, was able to match the intensity from UAS and not only hung with the Atoms on the scoreboard, but also in the physicality battle. The Purple Tigers got some quality looks in the first half, but did not convert as much as they’d hope. Milligan thought the looks would fall more in the second half, but the Atoms were able to capitalize on all of the missed chances and pulled away late.
“I think there was a lot of adrenaline flowing with it being a sectional game,” Milligan said. “There were a lot of good looks that I liked in the first half. I really stressed trying to get involved within 7 feet of the basket and get the ball in the paint area. I really felt like we found it and we missed a lot of shots into the basket, which is not typical.”
“I thought in the second half more of those would fall, but I don’t feel like we got as many of those clean easy looks like we did in the first half,” Milligan added. “I thought we had some players that made some great looks and even though we made some good reads, we had some passes that we just missed. I do give UAS some credit in terms of forcing us to play fast. They sped us up and were playing a little faster than maybe we were capable of moving.”
Cortland led 9-4 after the first quarter, but trailed 23-19 after the second. After UAS was able to gain a lead in the second, the Purple Tigers were never able to retake the lead. Despite that, Milligan could not have been prouder with the way his group battled until the finish.
“It was an incredible season and one to be proud of,” Milligan said. “Just a ton of growth and maturity. It was fantastic to have such great leaders. The guys just truly bought into playing for each other and playing selflessly. We were a tough matchup for all of our regular season games, and I have no doubt UAS was a little tentative coming in with our defense. UAS has put up big numbers, so, for us to hold them into the mid 50s, I think that the kids again really battled the best they could. It was a tough first-round matchup.”
Iniko Abani led Cortland with nine points. Bell added seven, Jaxson Gambitta had six, Tyler Thomas had five, Zach Muir added four, Owen Michales and Cal Albright had three and Caden Albright and Owen Johnson had two.
Cortland finished its season with a 15-6 record.
