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Irondequoit overcomes Churchville comeback to avoid upset, advance to semis

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Keenan Robertson scored 14 of his 18 points Saturday in the first half. (Photo: BILLY HEYEN)

By BILLY HEYEN

IRONDEQUOIT, N.Y. — Luke Melidona held the ball on the left wing late in the first quarter as Keenan Robertson cut backdoor from the other wing. Irondequoit’s Connor Shafer set a screen for Robertson, who rose up as Melidona lobbed the ball toward the rim.

Minutes earlier, Robertson had leaped before smacking to the hardwood, hyper-extending his right knee. It wasn’t immediately obvious he’d make it back to the game. But then there he was, in mid-air, snatching Melidona’s pass and throwing it down.

“We’ve got a special play,” Irondequoit senior Nick Leonardo said. “And it works every time, pretty much.”

Robertson’s return from injury and first-half takeover pushed top-seed Irondequoit to a big lead that it barely held onto in a 64-62 win over eight-seed Churchville-Chili on Friday night. Robertson scored 14 of his 18 points in the first half, and he was joined in double figures by Nick Leonardo with 12 and Melidona with 11. The win sends the Eagles to the Section V Class A1 semifinals against four-seed Pittsford Mendon.

“As they started coming back, we just kind of kept our cool and finished the job,” Leonardo said. 

MORE: Alahna Paige’s 35 lead Irondequoit girls to semis

As Irondequoit did in front of a full gym against rival Eastridge in the regular season, the Eagles ignited the home crowd by jumping out to an early lead. Nick Leonardo swished the first shot he took, a 3-pointer from the left corner for the game’s first bucket.

Then Leonardo pulled up from the right wing and banked the ball high off the glass and in, as if he’d intended it (he hadn’t).

“Was not expecting that,” Leonardo said. “I felt good in warmups, I just got lucky on that one. Felt good.”

Robertson went down with his right knee hyperextension a couple minutes later. He first walked away, as if he’d be fine, before falling back to the ground. He sat in a side room behind the bench with the Eagles’ trainer for a couple minutes as she treated it. But Robertson missed less than five minutes of game time and came back before the first quarter had ended.

Although Robertson limped onto the floor when he checked back in, adrenaline soon won out. His first bucket came off a drive from the left wing, and Robertson attacked all the way to finish with two hands off the glass.

“It hurts a little bit, I’m a little sore, but I’ll be OK,” Robertson said. “… We wanted to attack inside and draw as many fouls as we could to get them in foul trouble, and we just wanted to keep attacking.”

Robertson scored eight points in the second quarter, too. Then just before halftime, Cardon subbed in Ryan Heath, a freshman guard who’d spent the season on JV. It was Heath’s first time on a varsity court.

Almost immediately, Heath drove to his right and finished off glass. Then, with the Eagles in “one shot” mode with the shot clock off, it was Heath scoring again just before the halftime buzzer before being mobbed by his teammates.

“Ryan’s the best JV player that I saw all year, and he could’ve been with us all year and played for us,” Irondequoit head coach Chris Cardon said. “I wanted him to be a leader and develop that winner’s attitude that you have to have. And he has it, he’s gonna be fun to watch.”

Churchville surged out of the locker room with a comeback on its mind. The Saints used an inside-outside combination of Marcus Postell and Griffin Stella kicking out to John Keele, Collin Cantrell and Kamerin Poromon to keep Irondequoit guessing defensively. A lead that was 14 at halftime was halved to seven by the end of three.

The Saints pulled within 59-58 with about three minutes left on a Keele shot in the lane. At the other end, Keele drew a charge on Robertson, the junior’s fifth and disqualifying foul.

“We’re gonna struggle a lot without (Robertson), because he’s a big source of our team,” Leonardo said, “but we realized that we needed to step up.”

The teams split perfect trips to the line, then Robertson’s substitute, Jordan Kimble, made a foul shot to go up two points. Keele answered with another bucket in the lane to tie the game at 62. 

With Robertson out, it was time for Irondequoit’s senior point guard, Melidona, to make a play. He’d jumped a pass and made a layup to end the third quarter, then drove and finished at the hoop early in the fourth, but it had mostly been a distributing game for Melidona besides that.

In a tie game, though, the Eagles left the ball in Melidona’s hands. He penetrated right and was fouled with a minute left and made both foul shots. 

“We have all these plays, but sometimes the best play is just to keep it simple and get it to the guy that you need to get it to,” Cardon said.

At the other end, Amauri Smith blocked Stella to preserve the lead.

Each team turned the ball over once before Melidona went back to the line. He missed both freebies with 5.2 seconds to play, but Churchville couldn’t get a final shot off. 

With the ball loose on the ground and the buzzer sounding, Robertson was the first Irondequoit player to burst onto the floor toward his teammates, with no sign of any limp in his step. The Eagles’ student section quickly followed, and Irondequoit’s court was soon a mob of white shirts and white jerseys, celebrating as one.

“We didn’t handle adversity initially well,” Cardon said, “but I thought down the stretch when we needed to, we made some plays.”

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