By STEPHEN BRICKLER
ROCHESTER, N.Y. — Tournament MVP Parker Bonafede scored 29 points to lead the No. 7 seed York Golden Knights (13-11) to the Class C2 title with a 64-56 victory over No. 4 Bolivar-Richburg (17-7) on Friday night at Blue Cross Arena at the Rochester War Memorial. The game featured twelve second-half lead changes, but York used a late 12-0 run to break open a game that had been close throughout.
For York Coach Ed Orman Jr., the late run was fueled by defense.
“Stringing together stops. We could not get stops. They were hitting threes, we’d get them to miss and then we would lose a loose ball or rebound and then when we finally strung about five stops in a row, things really made a turn.”
After spotting the Wolverines a 3-0 lead on a first possession triple by Maddox Davison, Bonafede found success early down low, scoring the next six points of the game for the Golden Knights in the paint. Bolivar-Richburg responded with eight straight points of their own led by five points from Kingston Loucks who led the Wolverines with 21 points. Thus, the theme was set for a game that continued to go back and forth for the first three and a half quarters until York made its decisive run.
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The first quarter closed with Bolivar-Richburg holding on to a 14-12 lead. The Wolverines pushed their lead to seven midway through the second quarter, its largest of the game. York answered with the next eight points, split evenly between Bonafede and Yeriel Diaz-Pena (18 points on the night) to retake the lead 25-24. The quarter closed with three more lead changes, the Golden Knights heading to the break with a 29-28 edge.
The second half began with more of the same with six lead changes in the first four minutes of the third quarter. Bonafede continued to be a force down low, twice helping York regain the lead on and one three-point plays, the second as he was falling backwards to the floor to give York a 36-35 edge.
“My teammates put their trust in me and they got the ball into me and if I just pump faked and went up, I was going to make it. If not, I would just grab the board and kick it out to someone else,” said Bonafede of his performance.
The Wolverines responded with a Braden Zilker triple and Landon Barkley free throw to take a three-point lead.
Diaz-Pena then had his best sequence of the game for the Golden Knights, scoring eight straight points on a triple, a steal and finish at the rim seconds later and finally an old fashioned three-point play. Bonafede added another to deuce to round out the ten-point run to give York its largest lead of the game at that point.
Said Diaz-Pena of his outburst, “When I came in, I just knew I had to bring the energy. I’m a defensive player most of the time so when I got that steal, I knew I was gone and that’s when it got started. When I got that steal, I knew I would get hot.”
York’s lead didn’t last long. The Wolverines closed the gap to three by quarter’s end at 48-45. At this point, it was Loucks’s turn to take over for Bolivar-Richburg. He scored the first four points of the fourth quarter to put The Wolverines up by one. Bonafede finished down low to put York back on top by one. Loucks erased that margin with a two-point bucket only to have York’s Zach Baver return the favor to give York a 52-51 edge. Loucks again got to his left and finished at the rim to put Bolivar-Richburg up 53-52.
The game seemed destined to continue this way until the end when York put together its fateful 12-0 run in the game’s final four minutes, started by a Bonafede bucket and punctuated by Ryan Brady who scored five of his eight points in crunch time.
In a Section V tournament that was almost completely chalk, this game was the only final with teams lower than the third seed (eight of the 10 finals pit No. 1 vs. No. 2 while the other is No. 1 vs No. 3). York entered this tournament with a sub .500 record including a six-game losing streak in the first half of the season, but its young lineup put things together at the right time.
“You saw what we started tonight. We started a ninth grader, two sophomores and two juniors. We literally are getting better day by day. We’re better today than we were Monday. And it’s fun because I keep telling them, if we can get two more days of practice, I truly believe we’ll be better Monday night (Class C State qualifier) than we are tonight”, said Orman.
“And with young kids, that’s how it goes. They started believing in our principles. They stopped chucking so many threes, we’re pounding the ball inside, we’re winning the glass.”
With such a young roster, the future continues to look promising. “It feels great, hopefully next year we go two for two”, said Brady after the win.
Up next, the Golden Knights play in the Class C sub-regional on Monday night against Alexander. Aside from Bonafede, Diaz-Pena and Brady, Mason Parsons and Baver contributed 4 points each for York while Aiden Koblanski added one.
Bolivar-Richburg was looking for its first sectional title since 1979. Aside from Loucks, the Wolverines got contributions from Barkley (13), Zilker (10), Waide Karnuth (6) and three apiece from Davison and Mason Baldwin.
Great recap of the game. Enjoyed the article . Made me feel like I was at the game!