BY ASHTON TOWNSEND
HENRIETTA, N.Y.– Honeoye topped Westfield 64-60 to win its second regional title in program history. The Bulldogs now move onto the NYS Class C final four. Honeoye grabbed an 21-18 lead early in the second quarter that they didn’t relinquish until crunch time in the fourth quarter, which they would get back and seal the win.
“I thought we executed well, we tried to do whatever we could do to slow down Caleb Swanson and we had to get the ball out of his hands,” Honeoye head coach Robb Delisanti said.
Westfield’s Carson Swanson came into this game averaging 31.9 PPG with over 2,300 points in his career. He had 23 points on Saturday.
The Bulldogs entered the fourth quarter with a 49-43 lead, and extended that lead to 10 off a Braiden Schnieder trey and a Landon Washburn layup.
After Owen Cuba and Owen Reynolds each fouled out for the Bulldogs, things started to get shaky. On Reynolds’s fifth foul it caused an and-one for Zach Maguire and after he converted the free-throw, the Bulldogs were down 58-57. It was Westfield’s first lead since being up 18-16 in the second.
With one senior on the floor for the Bulldogs to close it out, and no timeouts remaining with under 1:30 to go, it turned into a free throw game. The free throw game favored the Bulldogs, Dylan Washburn and Schneider each made three of their last four free throws to seal the deal.
“For those guys to be out there and do what they did was huge, I’m incredibly proud of them,” Delisanti said.
Schneider scored a team-high six points in the final frame to help lead the Bulldogs.
“I knew they were sagging off me and I knew I could get a couple of threes here and there and when I had, I made them,” Schneider said.
In the first quarter, Landon Washburn came out hot for Honeoye scoring 13 of his game-high 28 points in the first quarter as both teamS were knotted at 16-16 at the end of the frame.
“I knew watching film that I could easily break these guys down off the dribble and that’s what I did,” Washburn said. “When i was open, I just shot it, I felt really confident.”
It stayed tight in the second quarter, Schnieder connected on a three and two-pointer for Honeoye and Dylan Washburn also had five in the quarter to give the Bulldogs a 30-28 at half.
Entering the third quarter the Bulldogs came out firing, Landon Washburn scored 11 in the quarter, and eight of the Bulldogs last 12 in the quarter as they held onto a 49-43 lead.
“Our ball movement increased coming out of the half,” Landon Washburn said. “We finally settled down into moment and realized we were meant to be here the whole time.”
Schneider finished with 15 points for Honeoye, Dylan Washburn (10), Owen Cuba (7) and Owen Reynolds (4) each also scored.
Also scoring for Westfield was Zach Maguire with 13 points, Braylon Swanson (10), Lincoln Thomas (5), Mason Whitesell (3), Grant Beadle (4) and Nolan Anderson (2) rounded out the scoring.
The Bulldgos are now in its second ever state final four appearance.
“We’ve had really good practices all year long,” Delisanti said. “We’re going to watch a lot of film to kind of just get to know what the other team wants to do.”
Honeoye will face either Cooperstown (III) or Moravia (IV) on Friday, March 21 at 3:15 p.m.
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