By PAUL GOTHAM
ROCHESTER, N.Y. — Lexi Green played a role in saving a season, and the Pittsford Mendon senior made the most of the opportunity.
Green walked off the court one last time as a high school student-athlete Friday night late in the fourth quarter of what ended up as a 61-41 Mendon win over Brockport in the Section V Class A title game.
The 5-foot-10 guard and Cornell University commit leaves behind a career that will rank as one of the best in Section V’s history.
With Green leading the way, the Vikings finished undefeated (15-0) this season and carry a 27-game winning streak that dates back to January 14th of last year’s pandemic-shortened season. Their sectional win was the fifth straight.
A two-time All-State performer including a First Team selection last year, Green scored 1,458 career points. She averaged 18 points and six rebounds per game this season after compiling 20 and 6 last season in those same categories.
“I always tell our kids ‘if you put something into, like basketball, you really get something out of it,” Mendon head coach Todd Julien said. “Lexi took that to heart when she was just a young kid.”
And she did all this while maintaining a 95 percent average in the classroom.
“She’s known that she wanted to play in college and that she wanted to go to an Ivy League school,” Julien said. “Cornell is really good fit.”
A front-court player in the CYP youth program, Julien recognized Green’s talent early and modeled her development after fellow former Mendon standouts Alana Fursman and Sarah Stark.
“They are all forward size with guard skills,” Julien said. “Those kids are worth everything in today’s game.”
Green started as a seventh grader on JV and was the team’s point guard the following year. She was promoted to varsity later that season.
“She was a center growing up who developed guard skills. That has been her trademark. She came up as an eighth grader, and we immediately put her in the rotation. She had a big impact.”
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During her sophomore season, Green scored 12 points and grabbed five rebounds per game for a Mendon squad that claimed the New York State Class A title – the program’s first. The Vikings went on to win the Class A Federation Championship – the first such accomplishment by any Section V team (boys or girls) at the Class B level or higher.
Green earned State All-Tournament and Federation All-Tournament team honors that year.
Julien celebrated his 400th win on Friday with 111 of those victories coming in the past five seasons. The Vikings have lost just seven games during that stretch.
Let that sink in for a minute…111 wins and 7 losses.
Seven losses in five seasons.
Green has been a constant throughout that run.
Mendon has lost to just four different teams during those past five years. Twice they fell to Jamesville-Dewitt. The first coming in the 2017 state final by two points. That J-D team, which won three straight state championships, was led by Jamie Boeheim (the daughter of Syracuse University head coach Jim Boeheim) and current Penn University player Meg Hair.
Williamsville South (VI), with UConn commit Amari DeBerry has also beaten Mendon twice over the past five as have the Penfield Patriots.
“We have a great rivalry with them and the kids respect each other,” Penfield head coach Mark Vogt said. “I also think that we make each other better. Win or lose, when we walk away from a game with Mendon, we’re better for it. We know what we have to work on. We know what we do well. We think we do the same for them.”
Penfield beat Mendon in back-to-back seasons before falling twice to the Vikings this year. Green scored 21 in Mendon’s 60-52 win on February 17th and had six in a 52-44 win on March 2nd.
“You can’t rattle her,” said Vogt whose team went on to win the Class AA title this season. “No matter how the game is going, she’s going to be steady. Kids like that (from opposing teams) always worry me. She’s a very good basketball player, but she’s got a tremendous IQ.
“When we went to overtime with them, and they got a two-point lead. Lexi and the rest of the Mendon girls knew how to close that game out. They’ve been there.”
Those two games were Mendon’s only contests this season decided by single digits. The Vikings finished the season with an average margin of victory greater than 26 points per game.
“They don’t get too rattled in big games, and she’s their leader,” Vogt added. “If your leader’s confident, it makes everybody else calm and confident. The intangibles she brings to Mendon are almost as valuable as her actual basketball skills which is tremendous.”
Green’s intangibles also played a role in the season as a whole. By mid-January when it looked like high-risk winter sports were to be cancelled, Green took to Twitter with a commitment to follow all the necessary protocols put in place to play games safely. Days later the season was restored.
“I call it the tweet that saved the world, our basketball world,” Julien said. “We were really getting near to the edge.
“Her twitter piece enlisted thousands of people in New York state basically saying that we can do this safely. We’re going to follow the guidelines. Please let us have a season. That caught fire. Two days later, they opened the season for us. I’m not saying that was the whole piece, but it certainly was a piece. It certainly taught our kids how to advocate for themselves. That’s something I’ll always remember about her aside from the stellar play and great career.”
Friday night on the bench after coming out of the game for the last time, Green was brought to tears.
“As soon as I came off the court, I started to cry,” she said soon after the game. “Coach and this program have been such a big part of my life for so long. To be able to go out on a win in sectional finals on our home court, it’s amazing. I couldn’t ask for more.”
And neither could Mendon ask any more from their star.
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