The Health Sciences Falcons are champions of Section VI’s Class AA2 again after a close 41-37 win over the Williamsville East Flames at Buffalo State University on Saturday night.
Sound familiar?
It should. The two teams met a year ago at the same venue, with the same result – a 61-59 victory for the Falcons. It’s the fifth sectional title in eight years for Health Sciences, and the second time the school has gone back-to-back.
“Man, it feels great,” Falcons coach Ty Parker said. “This feels a little better because it’s hard to win back-to-back, especially going against the same team. (Flames coach) R.J. Killinger had his guys well prepared to play, and we knew they were going to fight to the end. I applaud my guys. They stuck to the game plan in detail. We knew they liked to shoot a lot of threes, so we wanted to take away their shooters and we did a great job of that tonight.
“I'm just proud of our guys. These guys don't really know exactly what they did yet and it hasn’t sunk in, but it’s an incredible feat for our basketball program.”
Staz Chiddick, who was a force in the middle of the paint throughout the night, felt confident that their win won’t be the end of their season.
“It’s good to be back, and we’re definitely going to make it further this year,” Chiddick said.
“This is a new squad – some people are transfers, but we gotten it together, and now we can really play ball. We had a rough patch in the beginning of the year but now I think we're set. There’s a state championship right there for us.”
On the other side, the Flames bemoaned their missed chances.
“Health Sciences definitely made it tough for us to get an offense going. They were all over us all game long and I want to give them credit defensively,” Killinger said. “I thought we did an outstanding job on defense too. We held them to 41 points, but they just were able to make a few plays and make some free throws.
“Lucas Geraci played probably the best game of his life and he really provided a lot of scoring. I thought Jackson Geraci did a nice job off the bench. It certainly wasn't for a lack of effort and I thought every guy out there was giving it their all. I'm extremely proud of this group – the five seniors that started and played the most, they just are such high character kids. I'm going to miss them.”
The first three quarters featured inspired play from both sides. Chiddick racked up multiple rebounds and blocks while Lucas Geraci, Nahssan Young and Mychael Whitt providing much of the scoring for their teams.
In the fourth, things got a bit hairy for the Falcons. The Flames were able to cut an 11-point deficit down to just two, but free throws by Young were able to seal the deal.
“Young did a great job for us today,” Parker said. “Staz controlled the rebounds and he protected the rim – without Staz being in the middle of the paint it would have been kind of rough for us, because we had to play help defense on the backside or play side. Whitt was big for us today in certain situations and Brandon Michell came in and gave us some good minutes on the defensive end and he made some plus free throws too. It was really a collective effort.”
Including their football program – which is also coached by Parker and has five sectional titles of their own – Health Sciences has become one of the premier institutions in Western New York. Parker attributed their success to the culture they’ve created.
“We’re bringing in the right guys,” Parker said. “You’ve got to have high academics and be smart to play high school basketball. You have to remember offensive and defensive sets, so we're trying to bring in guys who are very intelligent on the academic side as well as on the sports side. I'm just proud of our football and basketball teams, and when combined with how we’re doing academically I think we’re doing it the right way.”
Photo Gallery Credit Shawn Turri/WNYAthletics
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