March 4, 2022 | By Sam Wilson, Olean Times Herald
JAMESTOWN — After an emotional victory over its rival and the No. 1 seed in Section 6 Class C, the Salamanca boys basketball team still had work left on Friday to finish off its season-long goal.
The Warriors faced down Holland with history on the line, seeking their first Section 6 championship since 1968. But the weight of history didn’t seem to bother coach Adam Bennett’s Warriors, who got out in front 8-0 in the game’s opening minutes and never trailed Friday night at Jamestown Community College.
Riding a hot performance by sophomore star Lucus Brown, Salamanca took the championship game, 70-51, over second-seeded Holland.
“There’s no better group of kids that deserve it,” Bennett said. “These guys, since April, have been working their tails off. They’re unselfish, they love each other, every day they just try to get better. They’ve gone through so much and for them to come out on the other side and do what they did, there’s just no more deserving group.
“They’ve never been worried about what teams in the past have done or what teams in the future will do, it’s all been about the next day and getting better every day. That’s that championship mentality. I just couldn’t be more proud of them.”
Brown scored 32 points on 12-of-27 shooting (7-of-15 from 3-point range) with 11 rebounds and two steals.
Andy Herrick (seven rebounds, five assists) and Cole Hedlund (10 rebounds, two steals) had 14 points each. Point guard Hayden Hoag dished out nine assists with eight rebounds and four steals while his twin brother Harley Hoag added seven rebounds and five assists.
“I think they said it’s been 55 years and that really puts it in perspective, how much we deserve it and how long it’s been,” Hayden Hoag said. “I can’t put it into words really.”
Of the championship win, Brown noted, “We’ve put in all the work since last year. We came into the game knowing what we had to do, so we got the job done.
“It means a lot. It means everything to me. I love basketball. I just want to keep going. That’s all.”
A step-back corner 3-pointer before the halftime buzzer gave Brown 18 first-half points and extended the Warriors’ lead to 37-20.
“I was really just feeling it,” Brown said. “(It was) just really confidence, that’s all. I’m just practicing my shots day by day, getting shots up in the gym. So I just buried it.”
Even Brown’s teammates couldn’t help but marvel at his performance.
“As a program, Bennett says all the time, we’re just a program, not one player,” Hayden Hoag noted. “But it’s certainly amazing when he has those nights. It’s unbelievable sometimes, like seriously, he just shoots it, it’s going to go in.”
Bennett praised Brown Monday night, after a semifinal win over Randolph, for how well he had assimilated back into the lineup and not forcing shots after missing time due to an internal disciplinary matter. On Friday night, Bennett trusted Brown to take the big shots his team needed to deliver a sectional title.
“Lucus is a big-time player,” Bennett said. “He was made for moments like this and that’s because he loves the game. He’s a gym rat. He’d be in the gym 24/7 if we’d let him. So I told him at the beginning of the game, these are the games that he gets to be excited and confident (about) because he’s put in the work and because he’s put in the time. He has no anxiety about how he’s going to do. He believes in himself, I trust him as a player and so it’s nice to see him play like that.”
The Warriors withstood a late-season slump, with losses in five out of seven game amid multiple abseneces due to injury, illness or discipline, but got their whole lineup back before the postseason and picked up their early-season form. As a fourth seed, they rattled off three postseason wins to deliver a sectional title more than a half-century in the making. Salamanca had not won its section since Chuck Crist’s senior year on the basketball court.
A sixth-year coach, Bennett praised his team, from its five seniors to a talented crop of underclassment, for its togetherness this season.
“They’re unbelievable kids, just first and foremost, and they all care,” Bennett said. “They care about each other and care about the game. I can coach for 30 more years and I’ll never have a group like this again. It’s everybody, not just the seniors but the whole roster. Their enthusiasm and passion for the game, they genuinely make it fun to be around them every day and that was our whole thing, we just didn’t want this to end. We’re on a great ride and we don’t want it to end. I’m glad it’s not.”
The Warriors (16-7) will play a to-be-determined Section 5 opponent in the Far West Regional at Buffalo State College on Saturday, March 12, at 1:45 p.m.
While Hayden Hoag echoed his brother Harley’s sentiment about moving on after midnight of Friday’s win — “We’ll just turn the page at 12 o’clock, this is another win,” Hayden said — Bennett laughed and said he’d give his players a bit more time to enjoy this victory.
“I’m giving them this weekend,” Bennett said. “We don’t know who’s coming out of C yet in Rochester, so we’ll take the weekend and then Monday we’ll get after it.”
