SANBORN — Never a doubt.
Despite losing star Annabelle Day, Section VI’s fourth-leading scorer, to a lower-body injury in the second quarter, North Tonawanda cruised to a 63-38 win over Lewiston-Porter in the Niagara Frontier League championship game Wednesday.
After outscoring opponents by nearly 800 points during the season, it was a surprise to few that the Lumberjacks, who shared the crown with Lew-Port in 2022, won their first outright league title in over 35 years.
But a storm has been brewing for the last half of the season as North Tonawanda surpassed 100 points in four games, drawing accusations of running up the score. The program drew significant social media criticism for beating rival Tonawanda 120-9 on Feb. 12.
Head coach Mike Mills responded “no comment,” when asked about the matter after defeating the Lancers.
GNN Sports received several complaints about the matter, but those individuals declined to go on the record, particularly after beating Tonawanda, a team that was 3-13 at the time and won two games via forfeit.
Video evidence submitted to GNN Sports showed one of North Tonawanda’s starters taking a 3-pointer just five seconds into the shot clock with roughly a minute to play in the game.
Mills again offered no comment as to why that player remained in the game or why the team wasn’t trying to feature other players who had yet to score in the contest.
But there is no questioning North Tonawanda’s talent or that it is set to enter the postseason as one of Western New York’s premier teams.
Annabelle Day, who leads the team with 25.9 points per game, was injured in the final minutes of the second quarter as she fell down grabbing her lower leg in pain. She was able to hop off the court, but did not return for the second half.
Rather than panicking, the Lumberjacks stepped up to fill her place.
“When Annabelle went down, for the team to step up and just kind of really work and pick up her slack because of the fact that she couldn’t be there for us, (for them) to really pull through with that was just great to see,” Mills said.
Lew-Port (13-7) started the game strong, jumping out to a 5-0 advantage and holding NT scoreless for the first five minutes.
“I think our energy was excellent,” Brian Hall, Lew-Port’s head coach said. “Our energy and effort came out, (we were) just flying around the court. We played really, really hard, and NT is a really, specially talented team.”
Freshman Lilly Day, who hit her 1,000th career point in the second half, netted a layup for the Lumberjacks and sparked a 12-4 run to lead by three. The Lancers hit a couple of layups to take a 15-14 advantage at the end of the first quarter.
NT (18-2) went on a 9-4 run to lead by 10, then kept building on the momentum to lead by 16 at the end of the third, with Jakayla Brown and Ella Cashion leading the charge. The Lumberjacks outscored Lew-Port 12-4 in the second quarter to lead 26-19 at the half.
Day scored a game-high 21 points, with 16 coming in the first half.
“It was super exciting,” Day said. “I wasn’t focused on it this game. I was more focused on winning, and especially, once Anna went down, I just knew that I wasn’t going to lose that team. I really just focused on playing defense. Most of my points came from my steals on defense.”
The Lancers set up some good sequences, but weren’t able to finish them with points. The Lumberjacks netted 20 points in the third quarter while the Lancers dropped 11 to trail 46-30 heading into the final quarter.
“I want to play really aggressive, and I want to win states,” Day said. “At practice we just need to work harder, get in the gym and push ourselves.”
Brown tossed in 16 points, while Cashion added 14.
Lily Baird led Lew-Port with 12 points.