Boys basketball: Hamilton takes stress-free route to state tournament win over Chester
YORKTOWN HEIGHTS - After surviving all the late-game drama here over the weekend, Hamilton left nothing to chance.
Christian Davis and Jaylen Savage were next level Tuesday, leading the Red Raiders to a 76-51 win over Chester Academy in a NYSPHSAA Class C subregional game at Yorktown High School.
Momentum is building.
After needing a fortunate bounce to secure a comeback win over Haldane on Saturday to win the Section 1 title, Hamilton went full blast from the jump.
"Of course, you’re always going to need a little bit of luck in a game like that, but at the end of the day we were working hard and that helped us pull through and get the gold ball," Red Raiders headliner Jaylen Savage said. "We needed to get out to an early lead in this one, though, so we didn’t have to kill ourselves like we did against Haldane. We came out and did the work early."
Section 1: Hamilton survives late scare in title-game upset of Haldane
Section 9: Chester uses defensive prowess to win Class C
Chris Ward did a masterful job of directing traffic for Hamilton, too.
"We have a tendency to get off to a slow start, but if we can lock in defensively, we give ourselves a chance," Red Raiders coach Keith Wright said. "That's been our focus. Getting ready for Chester, it was all about staying attached to Alex Bastian and staying attached to Jacob Angeles, who still killed us. It was just about paying attention to details."
Hamilton used an 18-3 run to get away.
Davis turned a Ward kickout into a corner 3, then Ward converted the next time down off a perfect Davis setup to give the Red Raiders a 31-11 lead with 5:42 to go in the second quarter.
"It’s tough to get back in once the deficit goes from 10 to 15 to 20 by halftime," Hambletonians coach Jon Marsilio said. "We had a little run to get within 13 at one point, but they’re so tough to defend. We fought. It wasn’t our day. We were outmatched."
What it means
It's a long-awaited second chance for Savage, who is the only member of the current team on the roster in 2019 when COVID-19 ended Hamilton's season one win away from the NYSPHSAA final four.
Chester is graduating six seniors, including three starters from this game — Angeles, Jimmy Lusignan and Ryan Murphy.
Player of the game
Davis was deadly in the corners, finishing with 29 points. He also grabbed nine rebounds and handed out three assists.
By the numbers
Chester (18-5): Angeles had 21 points and seven rebounds. ... Bastian finished with 17 points. ... Dylan Perez added nine points. ... Lusignan had four points and seven rebounds.
Hamilton (18-5): Savage delivered 26 points, seven rebounds and six assists. ... The Red Raiders have won 16 in a row. ... Ward finished with seven points and seven assists.
Quotable
"It was crazy," Davis said of the quick turnaround between games. "We had to put in some work. After the championship on Saturday, we had to get right back to it on Sunday. We know the job isn’t done. We had to put our foot down early in this one. We had to keep going."
Up next
Hamilton returns to Yorktown on Saturday to face the Long Island champion in a regional final. Section 8's Carle Place and Section 11's Pierson meet Wednesday.
Mike Dougherty covers boys soccer, boys lacrosse, girls basketball and golf for The Journal News/lohud.com. He can be reached at mdougher@lohud.com, or on Twitter @hoopsmbd, @lohudlacrosse, @lohudhoopsmbd and @lohudgolf.
This article originally appeared on Rockland/Westchester Journal News: Hamilton beats Chester, advances to NYSPHSAA basketball regional final
