Frank Speziale Photo

CORTLAND – Repeating their performance from Tuesday night, the Unadilla Valley Storm jumped out to an early first quarter lead. That lead was tested a few times throughout the contest but the Storm grinded out the win, crowning themselves the Section IV Class C champions for the first time the Unadilla Valley program history by taking down the four-seed Tioga, 58-48.

Striking first was Dante Dye, draining a deep three from the right side wing. Andrew Jackson followed up with a tip in off an offensive rebound, making the score 5-0

On the next offensive possession, Jackson hit a three of his own. A block by Levi Rifanburg led to another Jackson basket.

With Tioga scoring on only two trips up the floor, Dye hit another three and the Storm led 13-4.

Both teams played without a foul called until 2:10 left in the first quarter.

Rifanburg and Jackson finished out the first quarter scoring for Unadilla Valley as they took a 10 point lead after the first stanza.

Jackson tallied nine in the quarter, outscoring the Tigers on his own.

The run for the Storm didn’t stop at the end of the quarter. Rifanburg added a baseline jumper and Jackson finished with strong between two defenders. At that point, the game was 21-7.

But Tioga wasn’t going down without a fight. The Tigers answered with a 10-0 run, led by their big man Connor Hutchinson getting to the rim on three straight possession.

To end the run, Jackson hit a deep three right before the half.

Unadilla Valley took a 24-27 lead into the intermission.

Needing to find a way to stop Tioga, UV head coach Matt Osborne switched his man-to-man defense to a 3-2 zone to start the second half.

“We always start in man no matter who we are playing, even if it’s a mismatch, just to see what we can do,” said Osborne of his defensive adjustment. “3-2 [zone] has been kind of out bread and butter after a quarter or so, just because it’s confusing.

“We are long and have three or four guys that are 6-foot-2, 6-foot-3 with long arms. We can cover a lot of area. They were getting the basket way too easy so we had to do something different.

“I was worried about rebounding out of it but did a pretty good job on the glass. We were trying to keep them from driving to the basket and that’s pretty much what we did.”

In the third quarter, UV was able to keep Tioga out of the paint but the two teams answered basket for basket. The Storm’s Wyatt Grey came up big in the stanza, dialing in from long-distance for two three-points on back-to-back possessions.

Holding onto their lead, Unadilla Valley went into the final quarter up eight points.