Monday Roundup: Late go-ahead shot by Schwartz, missed chances plague Lions as C-G completes nail-biting 45-44 road win; B-R volleyball sweeps Fillmore

Wellsville junior Logan Dunbar (23) prepares to let his jumper fly against the Canisteo-Greenwood defense during Monday’s home contest in Wellsville. [Chris Brooks/WellsvilleSports.com]

Wellsville junior Cody Costello (2) drives his way past the Canisteo-Greenwood defense on his way up to the basket during Monday’s home contest in Wellsville. [Chris Brooks/WellsvilleSports.com]

Wellsville senior Eli Schmidt (5) splits the Canisteo-Greenwood defense on his way to the basket during Monday’s home contest in Wellsville. [Chris Brooks/WellsvilleSports.com]

Wellsville junior Aidan Riley, off-center, waits for a play to develop in front while being watched by the Canisteo-Greenwood defense during Monday’s home contest in Wellsville. [Chris Brooks/WellsvilleSports.com]

Wellsville senior Alex Perkins (3) goes up for the contested shot against the Canisteo-Greenwood defense underneath the basket during Monday’s home contest in Wellsville. [Chris Brooks/WellsvilleSports.com]

WELLSVILLE — It has been evident through the first half of the season that the Canisteo-Greenwood Redskins are a tough, battle-tested team not only locally, but across the region.

In the midst of their 4-3 season coming back out of the winter break, the Redskins tallied narrow victories over Campbell-Savona, Bolivar-Richburg as well as hard-fought losses to the hands of Hornell and even State-ranked Avoca/Prattsburgh, who they took to the extra mile right before Christmas.

Wellsville head coach Raymie Auman took notice of Canisteo-Greenwood’s skill and talent, saying that it’s the type of challenge they want to embrace and put towards a hopeful Sectional run come February.

“They have two college-level players in (Cole) Ferris and (Hunter) McCaffery. The local D3 schools are likely looking at them, and then (Mason) Boyd is a young, up-and-coming player, and then behind them, they play really hard. It’s a great equation to play against,” he said. “They have some Seniors that can really grind out wins, and that’s the kind of team that can get great wins like that. It’s a great challenge to go up against, and it really prepares you for Sectionals. If you don’t go into games like this, and it happened to us last year, you will be unprepared for Sectionals. They have talented kids that don’t represent the class the school is in.”

For their first test right out of the gate to start 2022, and the second half of their season, the Lions welcomed Canisteo-Greenwood into the Den on Monday to begin one of two home-at-home sets they will have in the month of January.

And as promised, they would deliver that challenge the Lions had hoped for.

Despite a massive run by Wellsville branching across the first half, the Redskins would make the Lions go the extra mile themselves all the way down to the wire. In the midst of a back-and-forth second half battle, it would come down to the last 10 seconds.

Down by one after a series of timeouts, Maddox Schwartz came up with the biggest shot of the game, tear-dropping his go-ahead basket with six seconds left to force a last-second shot from Wellsville. With three and a half seconds left, Logan Dunbar attempted to put away a game-winning fadeaway shot, but could not go, as Canisteo-Greenwood left Wellsville with a massive 45-44 edging victory.

“There were some sluggish legs, but those are things that you kind of forget about when you’re playing great defense,” said Auman. “We didn’t rebound as well as we should have, and we stopped communicating on defense. We held them to eight in that first quarter, and that was the goal. We had some missed shots, but we were fine. If we had kept that same look for the rest of the game, we would have been fine, but I don’t know if it was because we got tired, or if we let up a little bit. We let our missed opportunities impact how we play.”

It was a slow go to start the evening off between both the Redskins and Lions (4-4), with Canisteo-Greenwood erasing a scoreless tie on the board just over three minutes in with five in a row coming from the hands of Cole Ferris inside, and later, off a Maddox Schwartz three-pointer outside. The lead would reach 8-5 at one point after the hosts in white and orange broke their drought with the help of Eli Schmidt, who recorded four of their first five points off a pair of runners.

A massive run for Wellsville would be built from the waning minutes of the first quarter, and into the majority of the second quarter, going on to score 14 in a row to take the lead away from Canisteo-Greenwood, using the newly-founded 10-point lead to their advantage with Schmidt and Cody Costello tag-teaming on offense to fuel it up.

“It all comes down to defense. You can, but most occasions, you can’t really control whether the ball goes in or not,” Auman said. “You take great shots, and if you play great defense, it won’t matter because your opponent won’t go ahead. It was 5-0 at one point for a while, and then we got a bucket. If we weren’t playing great D, that would have been a 13 or 14-0 start for them. But we made our defense power our offense, and that gave us some success.”

But Canisteo-Greenwood would find their way back in it to make things interesting going into the half, and eventually, for the rest of the game, coming back with seven straight points led by McCaffery after being previously shutout by the Lions for the last five minutes during their 14-0 combined run between the frames. At the end of it, Wellsville’s double digit lead shrunk to three going into the break.

For the rest of the way, both teams would deal some back and forth blows, with Canisteo-Greenwood recording the brunt of those chances with their biggest frame of the night coming in the third quarter, led by McCaffery and Ferris’ efforts once more to take the lead away from the Lions going into the final eight minute period.

There were light spurts of offense in what was thoroughly a defensive battle, with Wellsville gaining ground on another tie to hold against the Redskins by tallying six of the first eight points of the quarter led by some help at the charity stripe by both Schmidt and Logan Dunbar. Just a short time later after a timeout by the Lions, Schmidt would foul out of the contest with just under halfway to go in regulation.

But the Lions would find a way to work their way through the adversity, battling with Canisteo-Greenwood straight down to the wire after going back ahead with a 44-43 lead with 30 seconds remaining. With the visitors in red in possession of the game’s final shot, it was landed with six seconds remaining by Maddox Schwartz from inside the right wing, after a series of passes around the arc found his hands inside for the teardrop.

The Lions were now pushed to the brink with three seconds remaining and the final timeout after the Redskins called checkmate with their clutch shot that saw them spring ahead. After the brief talk on the sidelines, an inbound with advancement awaited for Alex Perkins to play for the hosts, as he heaved the ball straight to Dunbar inside, who let a potential game-winning shot go against the pressurized Redskins defense.

But it would not fall, rimming out at the last second, as the visitors held on for dear life to capture the victory.

“We’ve been there before, and I’ve dealt with foul trouble in the past. It was a little bit tough trying to figure out what to run without Eli in the picture for the rest of the game,” Auman said. “We go to him a lot, especially towards the end of games. This would have been an ideal time for that, but certain circumstances didn’t allow that. We got some great looks with what we had, but we need to finish a lot better overall, and we will. Sometimes you have to go through something to make sure it doesn’t happen again.”

Costello would wind up as the team’s leading scorer, netting a team-high 15 points to pace the Lions attack. Schmidt would finish with 14 points of his own before being fouled out, while Dunbar and Perkins rounded off by providing nine, and six points respectively.

Fortunately enough for Wellsville, the same two teams will go at it once more for the final time, as they complete their home-at-home series in Canisteo coming up this weekend with a 3 p.m. tip-off in store for Saturday afternoon.

The team’s result after their return to the court to begin the second half raised a question mark prompted by Auman to his team entering their series finale with the Redskins, and going forward.

Quite simply — “Will it define or drive you?”

“It’s a unique situation that we’re in, and we have it twice this year on our schedule,” Auman said. “Back to back with Hornell, and first with Canisteo. That’s the life of being Independent in Section V. You take what you can get, and I told the guys that you can let tonight’s game define you, or drive you. If we let it define us, we’re in deep trouble. If we let it drive us, we’re going to have a great week of practice, have a chance to get better and get after it against on Saturday with a chance to redeem ourselves against them.”

Canisteo-Greenwood 8 13 18 6 – 45

Wellsville 9 15 11 9 – 44

CANISTEO-GREENWOOD: Mason Boyd 4 0-0 8, Cole Ferris 6 0-0 16, Hunter McCaffery 5 0-0 10, Jonathan Reese 0 2-2 2, Maddox Schwartz 4 0-0 9. Totals: 19 2-2 45.

WELLSVILLE: Cody Costello 6 1-2 15, Alex Perkins 3 0-0 6, Eli Schmidt 5 3-3 14, Logan Dunbar 3 3-6 9. Totals: 17 7-11 44.

3-point goals: C-G 5 (Ferris 4, Schwartz), Wellsville 3 (Costello 2, Schmidt).
Total Fouls: C-G 10, Wellsville 11. Fouled out: Schmidt (WLSV).

BOYS VOLLEYBALL

Bolivar-Richburg 3, Fillmore 0

RICHBURG — Fresh out of the winter break, the first win of 2022 on the volleyball court would be claimed by the Bolivar-Richburg Wolverines, as they made their new year debut on the strongest of notes, starting the second half of the season off in style with a 3-0 sweep of visiting Fillmore in Richburg, tallying the 25-18, 25-20, 25-15 decision on Monday.

Helping start the night strong for the Wolverines (2-5) was Ryan Greeson, who was dynamite at the front of the net with seven blocks to pair with his five kills and four aces from the service line. Furthering the cause was Hunter Stuck, who dished out eight assists to his teammates to couple with three blocks, two kills and two aces of his own.

Individual statistics for Fillmore (1-6) were not available to report upon publication.

Both teams will have Arkport/Canaseraga up next on their schedules, with the Eagles getting first crack this evening back on the road, facing the Wolves in a 6 p.m. first serve.

The following day, the Wolverines will host the same Wolves squad back on their home floor in Richburg in a 6 p.m. contest of their own, Wednesday night.