The Park School of Buffalo will play for a CHSAA Class B state title after it downed St. Mary’s Lancaster 65-59 in the Monsignor Martin qualifier Saturday night at the Koessler Athletic Center.
It marks the first time Park (14-13) will play for a Catholic state championship since 2015.
“For us to be able to get back down there, it’s a great feeling,” said Park head coach Rod Middleton. “We won as many games this year as we did the previous two years. So just the growth and the process and all the adversity we had to battle, it’s an amazing feeling and I’m glad I can share it with this group of guys.”
A back-and-forth affair saw neither team find much daylight on the scoreboard throughout.
The Pioneers and Lancers (9-18) exchanged small runs in the first half highlighted by multiple dunks from St. Mary’s Will Szablewski, and fittingly, the teams went into halftime tied, 29-29.
It felt like either team could embark on a game-defining run at any point, and that finally came for Park in the fourth quarter.
A Marque Sudduth 3-pointer and Elijah Greene bucket through contact sparked a 7-0 run that gave Park their largest lead of the game, 61-52 late in the final frame. Despite St. Mary’s cutting their deficit to four with under a minute to play, Park’s advantage combined with some clutch free throws proved to be enough to get them over the line.
“We saw the game was right there for us,” Greene said of his team’s late run. “We knew we just had to relax a little bit and calm down, and that ended up working. We did really well down the stretch.”
Park knew they’d need balanced scoring heading into the game, and that’s exactly what they got with three players scoring 14 or more points. Greene led the way with 19, Kamron Barge finished with 17 and Tiriq Cramer knocked in four 3-pointers to finish with 14.
“Coach said at least four of us had to be in double digits for scoring,” Greene said. “I knew I had to take on that role, score double digits to help our team, and so did everybody else.”
After a slower start to the season, Park is playing its best basketball at the perfect time, entering the state title game having won five of its last six games. For Middleton, it exemplifies the growth he’s seen from his team over these past three seasons.
“We had to take our lumps, learn how to lose from a standpoint of what not to do,” Middleton said. “There’s going to be ups and downs, you’re going to make mistakes, but if you can handle that adversity and just play through it there’s a bright light on the other side.”
St. Mary’s run of three consecutive Class B state title game berths came to an end on Saturday night, but with a young team whose top seven leading scorers are all underclassmen, head coach Frank Propis is hopeful for the future.
“It hurts a bit for sure,” Propis said of missing out on the state title game. “We’re a young group, it showed at times. But those are the growing pains you’ve got to deal with. Got a lot of guys coming back, most of the core. We’ve just got to learn and get better from this.”
Park will square off against Sacred Heart (22-2) out of Yonkers in the Class B state championship, which is slated for 11 a.m. March 8 at Fordham University.
Photo Gallery by Shawn Turri/WNYAthletics
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