BUFFALO — Grand Island started slowly and then they were never able to get into their rhythm.
They missed their first five shots in a row and turned it over multiple times in the opening few minutes of the game. That defensive pressure spelled doom for the best team in Grand Island history.
Grand Island entered the game as the first Niagara region team to make the state tournament since Niagara Falls in 2023, but they were unable to replicate what that team did and make the state semifinals.
Grand Island lost 63-49 to Maine-Endwell in the Class A Boys’ Basketball Regional Final game, Saturday, at Buffalo State University’s Sports Arena.
After the loss, Grand Island’s leading scorer, Dane Brown chose to look at the positives that his team accomplished rather than the loss. But, above all else he was looking at the time spent with his teammates on and off the court.
“It means a lot that we broke a lot of records this season and arguably the best Grand Island team of all time but the thing I’m going to remember is the memories I made with my teammates,” Brown said. “I’m not going to remember how many points I scored, I’m going to remember the bus rides and the locker rooms and having fun on the court with my team.”
Brown was held to eight points before fouling out in the fourth quarter. It was the least amount of points that Brown has scored since he had six points against Lockport on Jan. 14, 2025.
“We titled our zone at him, tried to play personnel driven, positioned defensively,” Maine-Endwell head coach Bill Ovker said. “We had to know where he was, had to have guys leaning at him at all times. We were not gonna let him shoot the ball where he caught it tonight.”
Grand Island was led by Chase Uribes and Jake Castiglia who each had 12 points.
Maine-Endwell came out with an aggressive 1-3-1 defense that saw them jump multiple Grand Island passes and not let them penetrate when they were not forcing turnovers. That led the visitors to take a 9-2 lead and stretch it out to 18-7 by the end of the first quarter.
The second quarter continued the same story with the Maine-Endwell lead being 34-20 heading into the intermission. One of the biggest storylines of the opening 16 minutes was the fact that Grand Island’s Dane Brown was held to five total points.
Grand Island was also held to two 3-pointers in the opening half, down from the six that they hit in the second half of their win over Monroe.
“We worked against the 1-3-1,” Grand Island head coach Chris Simpson said. “We tried to drill into our guys that if you see a guy open and you miss him, don’t go back to him because they’re going to overplay … They just didn’t get it and they got going a little too late. We also didn’t shoot very well in the first half, which doesn’t help us and turning the ball over doesn’t help us.”
The third quarter was tighter with Grand Island scoring 14 points but the Spartans defense continued to present issues in critical moments. Maine-Endwell finished the game with 13 steals.
Late in the game, Simpson made sure to save a timeout for a moment to honor one of the best players in program history, senior Jon Neville.
Neville finished his Grand Island career as the program’s all-time assists leader with over 250 assists. He also has played in and won the most games in Grand Island history, 94 total games and 71 wins. In total, over Neville’s career, Grand Island went 71-24.
“I think most of my legacy is built on the testament of everyone around me,” Neville said. “I’ve had good players around me my whole career, Jayce (Wylke), Dane. So it really shows how good they’ve been through the whole career.”
After this season, Grand Island is returning all but three of their players including bringing back their top three scorers. One of those returners is Brown, who finished his junior season averaging 23.7 points per game.
“It taught us a lot in the postseason, that we can’t take anybody lightly and we have to come out and throw the first punch every game,” Brown said. “We didn’t do that tonight. It’s just a learning experience, just like everything in life is a learning experience and it’s going to help us down the road.”