H.S. Girls Basketball: Hamburg, Eden win division titles before heading into playoffs

Bulldogs a two seed in A-1 after 15-3 regular season

Though an emphasis was put on completing the road to a division title, Hamburg couldn’t help but look toward the ultimate goal of getting to a sectional championship game as the regular season wrapped up.

In finishing the season on a 12-game win streak and closing out a second straight division title — this year not having to share it as they did with Williamsville East last season, the Bulldogs have been fine tuning their game for a possible postseason run in Class A-I.

“We’ve really been stressing the past couple of weeks cleaning up the little things,” said Kelly Owens, whose team looks to win the program’s first Section VI title since the early 2000s. “We want to tighten up the defense and cut down fouls and turnovers. Come playoff time, we want to be at our best. I think we’re on that path.”

Hamburg put an exclamation point on a 15-3 season with a 64-32 non-league win over Amherst on Senior Night (Feb. 16) to finish the regular season as one of the hottest teams in Western New York.

Two nights prior, the Bulldogs finished off an ECIC II title with a 49-21 drubbing of Williamsville East. Hamburg was a near-perfect 11-1 in ECIC II play, having avenged its only loss of the division season by beating second-place Iroquois on Jan. 31.

“We won the division title so the girls are fired up about that,” Owens said. “Our goal coming into the season was to win that but now we’re focused on getting to the finals.”

A big part of this season’s success has been the play of senior forward Alexis Smith, who finished the regular season how she started it — scoring on a very consistent basis. Also the team’s top rebounder the past two seasons, the 5-foot-11 Smith scored a game-high 22 points, pouring in 14 of those in the first half. She also scored 12 in Hamburg’s division title clinching win over East.

Coming to the aid of Smith has been three fellow starting seniors, Sam Villarini, Nicole Thiel and Joelle Kadi, all of whom have exhibited the ability to score, and junior Taylor Wolf, who’s been sound on both ends of the floor and used her 5-foot-11 height to help on the boards. Wolf actually led the team in scoring with 16 against East. In beating Amherst, Villarini added 12, Kadi, 11, and Thiel, nine.

“These girls have all been working super hard on their shooting, which obviously showed tonight,” Owens said after the win over Amherst. “The beauty is that the ball gets spread around and everyone is scoring. That should be to our advantage in the playoffs.”

Hamburg will be seeded second behind only Grand Island in the Class A-I draw. After a first round bye, the Bulldogs may potentially meet a Kenmore East team that cut their season short last year in the same quarterfinal round and in the same Hamburg gym. The Bulldogs will open playoff action Saturday, Feb. 25 hosting a quarterfinal contest at 2 p.m.

Raiders share ECIC IV crown, garner fourth seed

Even before Thursday’s game, a group of Eden players could look up to the wall of the high school’s gymnasium, see the additions of the past few seasons to the girls basketball banner and have much to be proud of in what they’ve accomplished.

But the likes of seniors Jenna Phillips, Lynn-lee Stresing, Alexis Nasca and Caitlin Sickau were not going to settle for living on the laurels of the past two seasons. These starting four, who have all been on the varsity for at least three seasons, led the charge to add to that banner, helping clinch a share of the ECIC IV regular season title with a 50-40 win over last year’s champion Holland on Feb. 16.

It was the team’s second division title in the past three seasons. The two teams entered their regular season finale in a second-place tie with the winner to finish in the division’s top spot along side Tonawanda. Though they fell a game short of a division title last season, the Raiders won the program’s first sectional title in 30 years.

“I pulled the girls aside and told them they have a chance to go out with two division titles, at least one sectional title, and when you look up there that’s more than most people that graduated from Eden can say,” Eden head coach Marisa Fallacaro said. “They wanted that.”

Eden improved to 10-2 in division play, matching last year’s mark, but had a tougher road during an 11-7 regular season that had its ups and downs. The Raiders lost earlier in the season to ECIC foes Alden —playing without Phillips, its leading scorer, and Tonawanda in a game in which they had the pace dictated to them. However, Eden bounced back to beat both teams the second time around on the way to winning eight of its final 10 contests.

The season also included Phillips, a five-year starter, scoring her 1,000th point and breaking the school record for points, along with the emergence as a starter of second-year varsity guard Emily Carias, who finished with nine points against Holland.

“It’s been a roller coaster season with different people stepping up at times,” Fallacaro said. “If we need Jenna, she steps up; if Jenna’s off than Emily steps up. She can break presses and shoot the threes like Jenna. When we need our bigs, Lex and Lynn have been coming on strong.”

Stresing continued her hot play of late, leading the team with 16 points and 13 rebounds, while combining with Nasca (nine points) on defense to make it difficult on a guard-oriented Holland and it’s all-time leading scorer Candace Kapusczinski to get in close to the basket for shot opportunities. Against Eden’s zone, Kapusczinski scored 12, while eighth grader Olivia Schmidt knocked down 18 on four three pointers to keep Holland in the game.

After a slow start, the Raiders took a 17-15 lead at the end of the first quarter and never trailed again. Eden ended the half up 26-18 and Holland got to within four only two more times, the last at 41-37 with 2:38 left in the game.

“I know Holland well enough that we won’t play them with a man-to-man defense,” Fallacaro said. “We want them dribbling into middle where we have a big target in Lex. She’s been doing a much better job in keeping her arms up. Holland is a great three-point shooting team and we did let them take some open shots, but we fought hard on defense.”

Holland’s full-court press made things difficult for Eden at times, especially to start the game. Holland ran out to a 12-5 lead early. “We forced it at times,” Fallacaro noted. “The nerves were out at the beginning. We were trying to throw long balls and it wasn’t working.”

However, Phillips helped bring a calm to the team. She took on the responsibility of hauling the ball up court against the press with two and three defenders draped all over her for most of the game. When able to break the press, she helped create some quick hit opportunities on offense, along with scoring 14 points and being a key player on defense and on the boards. She also hit an off-balanced one-handed runner down the lane to begin a 5-0 run after Holland had cut Eden’s lead to 41-37.

This game served to typify the importance of Phillips not only to the program over the past several seasons, but in her role with this year’s team.

“She’s that all-around player for us,” said Fallacaro of Phillips, who is also Eden’s career leader in threes and assists. “Her scoring is down this year, if you really look at, but she’s doing so much more. She’s the second leading rebounder, gets a lot of steals on defense and you saw it today, she had three defenders on her at all times as she tried to break the press. She just sees the court so well.”

Still, Fallacaro said Phillips and company are not yet satisfied as the Raiders approach the postseason as a fourth seed in Class B-1. They’ll open hosting fifth-seeded Olean on Saturday, Feb. 25 at 2 p.m.

“Jenna has been around for a while but she did nothing but work for that 1,000th point and everything she has done,” Fallacaro said. “It was a goal, but she’s not done yet. She still wants to make that record very hard to beat (by playing more games in which to score).”

Lake Shore wins playoff opener; Frontier, North Collins begin play Feb. 23

Coming off one of the program’s best regular seasons in recent years, Lake Shore advanced past the pre-quarterfinal round with a 53-24 win over West Seneca East in Section VI Class A-1 Tournament action on Feb. 21. The Eagles improved to 13-6 overall behind Josilyn Benton’s 11 points and nine from Morgan Feldmann. Mary Beth Benzing and Melanie Linsmair each added eight and Darian Evans, seven. Sixth-seeded Lake Shore now moves on to play at No. 3 Hutch Tech on Saturday, Feb. 25 at 2 p.m.

Elsewhere, Frontier, also a sixth seed, opens up the Class AA playoffs taking on No. 11 West Seneca West on Thursday, Feb. 24. Also that day, No. 9 North Collins will open at eighth-seeded Forestville in Class D.