By PAUL GOTHAM
ROCHESTER, N.Y. – Late in the second quarter of the Section V Class C3 final, a loose ball carried out of bounds at the north end of Blue Cross Arena. After game officials conferred, the original call was changed and the Caledonia-Mumford Raiders retained possession of the ball.
Seconds later, Vin Molisani measured up a 3-pointer from the left side of floor and buried it just before the horn sounded to end the first half.
Take that sequence and use it to represent a dominating performance in which Cal-Mum claimed its second straight title with 72-43 victory over York.
“I was pretty confident in us,” Cal-Mum head coach Dan Dickens said. “But I didn’t see this coming where we’d win by 30 almost.”
Tournament MVP Molisani finished with a game-high 29 points. The senior guard who scored a career-high 34 in Cal-Mum’s quarter-final win over Wheatland-Chili followed it with 32 over Lyndonville in the semis. Friday night at the Blue Cross he connected on 13 of 19 from the floor including 3-of-5 from long range.
“The shot at halftime was a back-breaker for them,” Dickens said. “I’ve seen him make those all the time. I remember him in second grade when he’d be playing against the sixth or eighth graders at my camp and making like 25-footers to beat the buzzer. He’s just such a great high school basketball player. For him to be playing in Class C is a huge advantage for us.”
This was the fourth head-to-head game played between the Livingston County Athletic Association foes this season, Cal-Mum fell in the previous meeting, 75-58.
Molisani set the tone early in the championship game scoring eight in the first quarter, and the Raiders jumped to an 18-9 lead.
“Just to stick it to them,” Molisani said of the mindset to start the game. “We had to redeem ourselves for the last game. That was really tough on us. We wanted to show them what we got.
“They sat in a zone last game, and we didn’t really play well against it. Coach showed us a couple new plays and how to attack it. We did that tonight.”
Friday night, the Raiders hit 32 of 61 shots from the floor overall and outrebounded York, 42-26.
“They took it to us,” Dickens said of the loss. “We decided we were going to be 3-point shooters when we went over there. That’s not our game. We didn’t bring our A-game that day. We probably could have done some different things, but York was pretty motivated at their place. They had lost to us quite a bit in a row.”
Joe Laursen scored 10 points and was a part of a Cal-Mum defensive effort which limited York to 5-of-22 shooting in the first half and 15-of-51 for the night.
“We just knew that defense was key,” the senior forward said. “We came out slow in the loss against them. We came out firing this game, and were hot.
“Have a lot of respect for York. Of course, we’re always playing against each other. The work that we put in this year and last year, just unbelievable.”
Leading 35-17 at half, Cal-Mum forced consecutive turnovers on back-to-back possessions and scored the first six of the third quarter. By the time Molisani led Kyle Wade for an open-floor layup the Raiders lead had swelled to 24 at 45-21.
“It feels awesome,” Dickens said. “I told the guys last year after we won and when our season was over ‘Hey, now the pressure is on us to go back and repeat. Everybody’s going to be aiming for us.’ These guys worked really hard to get themselves to be better basketball players.”
The title was the third in the past six years, but first repeat championship in program history. Accomplishing that was important to Molisani who became the all-time leading scorer in Cal-Mum history earlier this season.
“Every single big game we’ve played in, he has performed well,” Dickens noted. “He’s such a talented high school basketball player. He’s tough to stop one-on-one. He’s deceptively quick. He’s got those long arms, those long legs.”
Laursen and Wade joined Molisani on the All-Tournament team. Wade scored eight points and grabbed eight rebounds. Noah Carnes added two points. Adam O’Donoghue had eight. Troy Kolb (6), Max Reed (5), Nathan Howard (2) and Colin Guldenschuh (2) rounded out the scoring for Cal-Mum.
Josh Davis, Timmy LaGeorge and Riley Stella represented York on the All-Tournament. Davis had 18 points. LaGeorge added 13. Stella had three points. David Cuozzo (3), James Kennedy (3) and Lucas Garza (6) rounded out the scoring for York.
Oakfield-Alabama’s Joey Burdick rounded out the All-Tournament team.
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