BINGHAMTON – All Mariah Ruff needed was a little help from her friends.
Oneonta’s star sophomore scored a game-high 23 points, surprisingly just two in a tense fourth quarter, as the ‘Jackets held off Norwich in a 41-36 Section IV Class B title victory Friday night at the Broome County Veterans Memorial Arena.
It was the fifth straight Section IV title for Oneonta, the last two under second-year head coach Matt Miller. For Norwich, it was a second straight finals appearance in which it fell a few points shy.
“I guess we just need to find a way to get over the hump,” said Norwich coach Josh Bennett, clearly sobered by the moment.
For two quarters, Ruff did everything possible on the offensive end. She scored inside, outside, and at the free throw line putting her team’s first 15 points of the first half. At the end of the half, she stole the ball from Norwich’s Jenni Borfitz near midcourt, and dished to teammate Kelsey Baker for the layup as the first-half horn sounded. To that point, Oneonta’s collective – aside from Ruff – went 0-for-8 from the field.
“Mariah was doing a good job of getting dribble penetration, but our players were getting passes from her five feet behind the three-point line, and they couldn’t do anything from that far out,” Miller said. “We kept reminding our kids to get closer to the basket. They did a better job in the second half of putting themselves in position to catch and shoot.”
It wasn’t likely that Ruff would keep up the torrid scoring pace in the second half, and it was less likely that Oneonta would win unless the rest of the Oneonta roster added some offensive balance. Ruff’s teammates made their presence felt right away, and expunged the first-half shooting woes. Hayley Dower stuck a 15-foot jumper for Oneonta’s opening bucket of the second half.
Norwich fell on hard times offensively as Oneonta whipped off an 11-3 run over the first four minutes of the second half. Ruff had four points during the run, but more importantly, her teammates were consistently making shots. Dani Nicosia banked in a short jumper from 10 feet, and Dower swished a three ball in rhythm that made it 28-19.
Norwich shot just 2-for-11 in the third period and trailed 31-20 with eight minutes to play. Considering the Tornado scored just 27 points in the previous meeting with Oneonta, a comeback victory was a daunting task.
Apparently, Norwich’s players didn’t get that memo, and began to score in bunches from the opening possession of the fourth. NHS senior scoring leader, Bryn Loomis, began the fourth with driving three-point play, just her second basket of the game. Loomis spearheaded a Norwich spurt in which it cut the 11-point deficit to just three points in just over two minutes.
“Yeah, I was surprised they came back,” Miller said. “We were up 11 points, then two minutes later, (Norwich) was back in the game.”
Hailey Dietrich scored on a reverse layup after a feed from Cashman, Loomis cashed in on a three, and then Loomis added a pair of free throws making it 33-30 with 5:41 to play.
