By PAUL GOTHAM
VICTOR, N.Y. — When the NE Douglass boys’ basketball team needed a focus to prepare for Wednesday’s game, the Panthers looked no further than a dictionary. There the young squad found inspiration for perhaps the biggest upset of the 2018 Section V boys basketball tournament.
Holding top-seeded Leadership Academy for Young Men to its second-lowest single-game point total of the season, NE Douglass clinched a spot in Saturday’s Section V Class A2 championship game with a 64-59 victory Wednesday night at Victor High School.
“Our mantra going into the game was ‘believe,'” coach Kyle Crandall said. “We talked about that before the game what believe meant. We had a dictionary definition of that. There were a lot of nice synonyms that were shared.”
Words on the page looked closer to reality when the Panthers took a 25-20 lead into halftime.
“This season every time in the huddle it’s usually Panthers on three. Hard work on three. Family on three,” junior guard Jiahmere Mitchell said. “Tonight it was ‘believe on three.’ You just got to believe. The record doesn’t mean anything in sectionals.”
Sophomore Adonis Flagler scored 12 of his game-high 22 points in the fourth quarter to lead NE Douglass to its first championship game appearance in program history.
“We came into this game believing we could win,” Crandall added. “We knew that if it was close at halftime, the pressure was going to turn to Leadership.”
Despite drawing the attention of a defense designed to stop him Mitchell, the Panthers leading scorer at 23.3 points per game during the regular season, finished with 17 points in the contest.
“It was basically a 1-3-1 except the guy up top on the 1-3-1 just followed the best player,” Crandall said. “We worked on that a lot the last two days. We were struggling a little bit throughout the game trying to get the ball to Jiahmere with some confidence. Finally when we started setting some of those high screens for him when he had the ball up there, he was able to weave through the defense a little bit and make some critical attacks toward the basket.”
Late in the third quarter, Mitchell sparked a decisive 13-3 run when he got in the lane for a bucket. The Panthers had a 42-41 lead they did not surrender.
“I’m not the only one,” Mitchell said. “You take me out, you got another player. You take him out, you got another player. Shout out to Adonis for those 22 points. I don’t have to be the leading scorer for us to win.”
Trevion Miller grabbed a loose ball underneath the basket and finished. Flagler converted two free throws. After Lovelace hit one of three from the charity stripe, Mitchell connected on his only 3-pointer of the night. He followed with a steal and layup to fetch a timeout from the Leadership bench with 5:06 remaining in the game.
Flagler split a pair of free throws, and the Panthers led 53-44.
“Nobody in the city expected us to win,” Mitchell stated. “Nobody. People were texting me on phone like ‘y’all ready?’”
“I said ‘Come watch the show. Pay five dollars; come watch the show.'”
Rondell Watson paced Leadership with 25 points.
“We focused on Rondell,” Crandall said. “We wanted to be in his face every single opportunity we had, and the kid still scored 25. There has got to be talk about him being the best player in Section V. He was our number one focus.”
Dez Ellis added 16. Davon Brown scored seven. Shamir Mccullough chipped in with three points.
“The problem with Leadership is you can’t just focus on Rondell,” Crandall added. “They have so many weapons. Any of the other players can beat you as well. Thankfully, the clock expired when it did. I’m so proud of my kids.”
The Lions averaged more than 86 points per game during the regular season when they topped the century mark on four different occasions.
“I’m just so proud of my kids,” Crandall commented. “They bought into two consecutive game plans. We know that Leadership is a really good 3-point shooting team. As much as we could we wanted to push them out and try to make that a little bit deeper. That was our philosophy going into this one.
“With 18 seconds left and us up by three possessions, I was feeling good. I was not feeling great until that clock expired.”
Lamar Lovelace connected on three 3-pointers and added 10 points for NE Douglass.
NE Douglass (15-7) will play reigning champion Wayne (19-3) in Saturday’s championship.
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