CUMBERLAND — Allegany purchased gold scissors to cut down the nets, drawing inspiration from the ESPN Documentary, “Survive and Advance.”
The film detailing the underdog 1983 N.C. State team’s run to the national championship was assigned as homework. Allegany assistant coach Nik Gates showed the players the shears he acquired, which mimicked the iconic pair coach Jim Valvano used, ahead of Wednesday’s region championship as motivation.
The Campers put them to good use.
With Allegany star Chris Manherz barely able to move after cramping in both legs in the fourth quarter, Cole Ricker sunk a crucial 3-pointer in the final minutes — his lone bucket of the night — and the Campers held Mountain Ridge without a point over the final 3 minutes and 59 seconds to pull it out.
Few would have pegged Allegany as the last team standing after it lost five of its final eight games, but the third-seeded Campers outlasted fourth-seeded Mountain Ridge, 57-46, for the Class 1A West Region I championship all the same.
Allegany survived and advanced all the way to its first state tournament appearance since 2017.
“It’s a total program win,” Allegany head coach Brandon Reed said. “What the kids have went through and how they battled in different adversity, losing games in the middle of the season.
“But they never stop believing. And it’s all credit to our coaches who spent countless hours scouting and this group of kids. This group of kids was doubted by a lot of people. This is really special.”
Allegany (15-8) is seeded No. 7 in the state quarterfinals, where it’ll head to Baltimore’s SEED School — which lost in overtime in last year’s championship game and eliminated state power Edmondson, 61-60, Wednesday.
Manherz led all scorers with 26 points, adding six assists, Landon Holliday tallied 11 points and six rebounds, Sebastian Stewart scored eight points — which included three significant put-backs in the third quarter — and Ricker and Owen Rice added six points.
John Delaney willed Mountain Ridge back into the game with 12 points in the second half, finishing with 17, and his bucket with 3:59 to play cut the Miners’ deficit to 51-46.
Allegany scored the game’s final six points to hang on.
Mountain Ridge finished with a 13-10 record.
“It was a tough night,” Mountain Ridge head coach Tim Nightengale said. “We didn’t play a quality game. Their 2-3 zone really disheveled us and took us out of rhythm, and we didn’t play the way we were capable of playing tonight.
“Credit to Allegany, their zone did that to us. Our boys had a great season. Can’t take that away from them from despite tonight’s performance.”
AJ Lauder and Cam Breighner also recorded double figures for the Miners. Lauder scored 11 with three 3-pointers, and Breighner ended with 10.
Allegany held a 14-11 lead after the first quarter and 27-23 at halftime, but Mountain Ridge surged back to level the tally at 33 with 4:23 remaining in the third period.
Reed called a timeout, and the Campers answered with a 13-2 run, spurred by a Holliday 3, Stewart’s putbacks and a four-point possession made possible when a technical foul was issued to Nightengale.
Allegany scored 15 of the quarter’s final 19 points to take a 48-37 advantage into the fourth.
“I could just see we just needed to regroup,” Reed said. “They were the ones speaking a lot, telling each other, ‘We’re fine, just settle down.’ They never questioned what we were doing, and they believed and it showed.”
The game had one final wrinkle when Manherz landed awkwardly after a jumper plus the foul, and he had to leave the game after a lengthy stoppage, unable to attempt the ensuing free throw.
“It was one of the worst cramps I’ve had,” he said.
But Rice stepped to the line and made the foul shot, and when Manherz returned, his teammates still continued to pick up the slack with the scorer still physically hampered.
Manherz checked out with 33.1 seconds to go for the final time at Allegany, embracing with Reed and the rest of the Campers’ bench with the job all but done.
“We watched the N.C. State team from ‘83, and they lost 10 games and won the national championship,” Manherz said. “We all came together and practiced and we all wanted it. All 10 guys knew we would win if we all put in the work.”
Allegany earned more than twice as many free throws as the Miners, making 17 of 22 compared to Mountain Ridge’s 2 for 8. Manherz was 11 for 14 at the line.
Mountain Ridge won the rebounding battle 26-16, but the Campers held their own when it mattered.
“We’ve just been working on it in practice,” said Holliday, who pulled down double-digit rebounds at Southern on Monday. “Got to find a body, box them out, get them out the paint and then just go find the ball after that.”
Allegany now turns to the state tournament, where few, if any, will give the Campers a chance in the road trip to Baltimore.
Allegany hopes to make believers out of everyone, just as the team that inspired it 43 years ago did.
“It’s all credit to what everybody’s built before us,” Reed said. “And we talked about how this is what we wanted to get back to. This is where we hope Allegany basketball is.”