Unadilla Valley clamps down on Lansing to win second straight Class C hoops title

Pete Mansheffer

Sun Contributor

CORTLAND – Levi Rifanburg all but delivered Unadilla Valley’s second straight Section Four Class C championship on the opening play of the third quarter Saturday afternoon.

The senior’s alley-oop dunk nine seconds into the second half sparked the fifth-seeded Storm to its second consecutive sectional title with a 50-29 victory over the Lansing Bobcats at SUNY Cortland.

Unadilla Valley (19-5) will play Section III champion Cooperstown (22-2), a 61-57 winner over Utica Academy of Science Sunday, in a NYSPHSAA Class C regional championship on Sunday at the Floyd L. Maines Veterans Memorial Arena in Binghamton (time to be announced).

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Leading 22-13 at intermission, the possession arrow favored Unadilla Valley to start the second half. Coach Matt Osborne said that they had used the alley-oop play coming out of halftime a few times this season, but wasn’t sure whether to try it Saturday as Rifanburg had nursing a hamstring issue recently.

“I thought we needed something to get us going, but I needed to see if Levi’s hamstring was okay. (Levi) said ‘Let’s do it’,” Osborne said.

A solid screen on the baseline freed Rifanburg and Wyatt Grey delivered a perfect pass to the rim. Rifanburg finished it off with a vicious two-handed throw-down that had both Unadilla Valley and Lansing fans cheering with appreciation.

Lansing players however…

“Yeah, that set the tone for the second half - we knew they weren’t going to recover from that,” Rifanburg, who led the Storm with 18 points.

If the dunk set the tone for the second half, it was Unadilla Valley’s velcro defense all afternoon that pushed them past a Lansing club – who last won a sectional title in 1977.

Unlike the Storm’s 65-42 semifinal rout of Newfield two evening’s prior when the two teams combined for 12 three-pointers (5 by UV), Unadilla Valley had to grind this victory out against a physical (and sometimes chippy) Bobcats’ club.

“We worked hard defensively and clamped down on them,” Coach Osborne said. “This was a team that was averaging eight to ten three-pointers a game and I think they made two (it was three). We shut them down and our inside guys did a great job rebounding and limiting them to just one shot.”

Championship game jitters made for some spotty play early but, after spotting Lansing (16-6) an early 4-0 lead, Unadilla Valley regrouped and grabbed a 10-6 lead behind four points each from Rifanburg and fellow senior Andrew Jackson, who also had two assists, the first on a lead pass to Grey for a layup 2:10 into the game for the Storm’s first points.

After two free throws by Ethan Burt on Lansing’s opening possession of the second quarter, Unadilla Valley ripped off ten straight points.

After beating Lansing’s 1-2-2 trap, Jackson, who finished with 17 points, drained his only three-pointer of the game from the wing then, after a missed Lansing three, Jackson went 1-on-1 and, after nearly being taken out by his own teammate, got to the hole for a layup and foul, which Jackson completed with the free throw.

Dylan Nichols, who provided a nice spark off the bench for Unadilla Valley, picked off a Lansing pass and went coast-to-coast for the layup before Rifanburg completed the run with post-up and layup, pushing the lead to 20-8 with 3:32 to play in the half and forcing first-year Lansing coach Joey Volpicelli to call a timeout.