Williamsville North Survives OP, Advances To Title Game Against Niagara Falls

Senior Ryan Johnston just couldn’t see his high school basketball career ending just yet. Then sophomore Jonathon Abaya visualized himself making the two biggest free throws in his life. Then coach Chuck Swierski could barely see through his tears of joy outside the winning locker room. In the end, it was a sight to behold for the Williamsville North boys basketball team. After Johnston saved the season in the dying seconds of regulation, Abaya buried two free throws with 3.2 seconds left in overtime and the Spartans earned a thrilling 65-64 win over ECIC I rival Orchard Park in a Class AA Section VI semifinal on Thursday night at Buffalo State College’s Sports Arena.

“This is my 15th year coaching, and I played basketball for an awful long time before then, and I can’t think of a whole lot of games played by two teams that wanted to win so badly,” an emotional Swierski said. “Luckily we just made a play down the stretch.”

Orchard Park senior captain Dave Morris hit a 3-pointer with 12.3 seconds left to give OP the lead with 12.3 seconds left. After a timeout, Williamsville North worked a play into the paint for Abaya, who drove to the basket and was fouled. He calmly swished both to send North to the sectional title game for the first time since 2009. “I was visualizing it,” said Abaya, who scored 18 points to lead North. “The (OP) coach was stalling with refs so maybe they were trying to ice me. But I was just visualizing that I was going to make these free throws. I visualized making those and then I made them, so I guess I was just in the zone.”

The win sends Williamsville North (15-7) to the sectional title game at 3:30 p.m. Saturday back at Buff State against two-time defending champion Niagara Falls (17-4). The Wolverines held off a challenge from Jamestown for a 48-39 win in Thursday’s first semifinal But the challenge Niagara Falls faced was nowhere close to what the No. 3 seed Spartans saw from OP, it team it handled rather easily in two ECIC I games. North held the lead for most of the game’s first 31 minutes but the final six minutes consisted of a back-and-forth battle for the ages. After hanging around all night long, OP took the lead with 56 seconds left on a bucket by senior captain Eric Liberatore with 56 seconds to play. OP led by two late but Johnston simply refused to lose. The senior point guard drove hard to the basket and banked home the game-tying shot with 3.2 seconds left in regulation.

“Coach always tells us, whichever team wants it more is going to win,” said Johnson, who scored 16 points in the win. “Down the stretch, we just wanted it more. My senior year, I wasn’t going to go down without a fight.”

Meanwhile, the Quakers season ends at 10-12. The young Orchard Park team’s season was highlighted by last Friday’s upset win over Lockport and that victory also showed good things are on the horizon for a team that had more sophomores (four) than seniors (three).

“I told the team, our record isn’t that good but how we’ve come and how we’re playing right now doesn’t reflect our record,” OP coach Jim Gibson said. “We’re very proud of what we’ve accomplished. The future’s bright and maybe with a little better break tonight, we would have kept going.”

In Thursday’s first semifinal, Niagara Falls seized control with a 24-3 first-half run by underdog Jamestown refused to go quietly and closed with within three points midway through the fourth quarter. But the Wolverines relied on the calm play of their two eighth-grade stars Willie Lightfoot and Roddy Gayle and pulled away for the win. The young guys, I don’t think they know to be nervous on this stage,” Niagara Falls coach Sal Constantino said. “I thought Jamestown did a really nice job of slowing down the tempo . We’re not going to win a whole lot of games when we don’t score 50. I guess you can say we gutted it out tonight.”

Lightfoot scored 16 points and Gayle 12 for Niagara Falls. Matt Hil scored 13 and Marcus Rojas 11 for Jamestown (11-11).