SYRACUSE — Danielle Ennist scored a team-high 21 points as Delaware Academy advanced to its first Final Four since its state-championship run in 2018 with a 58-48 win over Section III champion West Canada Valley in the girls Class C Central Region Championship game Saturday, March 14, at Onondaga Community College’s SRC Arena.
For the Bulldogs, the win gets them past the point where they were eliminated last year, after a 55-48 loss to Cooperstown.
“I think at the beginning of the season, it was absolutely a goal for us,” Delaware Academy Coach Todd Bruce said. “We felt like we had a very young team last year, and even though we do have a young team this year, we feel like the experience on this team isn’t young.”
West Canada Valley started the game on a 7-2 run, and also led, 9-3, but the Bulldogs pulled even at 9, and led after one quarter, 11-9.
In the second quarter, both teams saw their leading scorers, Ennist for the Bulldogs, and freshman forward Brooke Reddington for the Nighthawks, go to the bench with two fouls. The game was tied at 15 with 3:49 left in the half when Reddington departed. The Bulldogs then went on a 7-3 run to close the half, capped by a three-point basket by Leah Young seconds before the buzzer.
“We consider ourselves a deep team,” Bruce said. “We truly believe in the kids that come off the bench for us. Probably on a number of teams, they would be starters. We got great production from our bench today. I think Danielle would be the first to say that they picked her up.”
Delaware Academy started to press at the end of the half, and continued to do so into the second half, forcing WCV to play a full-court game that suited the Bulldogs.
“That’s the type of game we try to play,” Bruce said. “We figure if the game is fairly close at halftime, we try to force the issue in the second half. We pride ourselves on conditioning, so in the second half, we do try to get their legs out from under them a little bit and see if we can get some turnovers.”
The strategy worked as the Bulldogs began to pull away in the third quarter. Reddington drove the lane to bring her team within two points, 28-26, with 3:23 left in the quarter. However, Paige Weaver drew a change on her on the next trip down the court, and the Bulldogs went on a 14-2 run, capped by another three pointer from Young, this time with 42 seconds left in the quarter.
Reddington made two free throws in the final seconds of the quarter to make it 42-30 going into the fourth quarter.
Delaware Academy led by as many as 17 in the fourth quarter when Tyler Abts made a three-point basket from the left wing to beat the shot clock with 3:36 left in the game.
Although Reddington finished with 28 points, 12 came in the fourth quarter after the game had been decided. Delaware Academy pulled most of its starters for the final two minutes, and Reddington scored eight points at the end to make the final score closer than the game felt in the second half.
Bruce praised Abts, who guarded the taller Reddington.
“Ty’s used to that,” he said. “She’s an animal on defense. She is our vocal leader, on and off the floor. When she gets out there, she thinks defense first, and she typically draws the assignment of the best player from the other team.
“Coming in our goal was to keep (Reddington) under 20,” he continued. “We obviously we didn’t do that, but coming in, if you had told me we would win by 10, I would have been happy with that.”
Abts scored 11 points for the Bulldogs, which also got seven points from Lexi Davis, six points from Young, five points from Jaylyn Prisco and four points each from Weaver and Rebecca Verspoor.
Katy Michael scored 10 points, and Lily Dommer scored six points for West Canada Valley (23-2).
Delaware Academy (22-2), the Section IV Class C champions, will play either Section V champion Keshequa or Section VI champion Frewsburg, the defending Class C champions, in the Class C semifinals, which is scheduled for 10 a.m., Friday, March 20, at Hudson Valley Community College in Troy.
“We know what is in front of us,” Bruce said. “The Final Four is the Final Four. When you get to this point, it is a little bit of gravy on top. We have a young squad, and we are going to give it everything we’ve got.”