Clutch at the end, Greece Athena knocks off Irondequoit for Section V Championship !

As a pregame ritual, all members of the Greece Athena boys basketball team shoot 30 free throws the morning of a game. That practice paid off when it counted most during Athena’s Class AA2 sectional title game against top-seeded Irondequoit on Saturday night. Wallace, just a sophomore, swished a pair of 1-and-1 situations late in the fourth and finished with 19 points as the No. 2 Trojans (19-4) defeated No. 1 Irondequoit 57-54 at Blue Cross Arena at the War Memorial. Athena rallied from a 10-point deficit over the final 11 minutes, 47 seconds to win its third sectional title in four years and deny Irondequoit (20-3) its first sectional title since 1945. “I knew I had to make them all, and I just knew I was going to make them with no pressure,” said Wallace, who pushed Athena’s lead to 55-51 with 25 seconds remaining and 57-54 with 15 seconds left.Wallace, the son of former Athena and Syracuse University standout John Wallace, hit on 28 of 30 during Saturday morning’s shoot-around. “John’s been huge in the postseason for us,” said Jim Johnson, Athena’s 13-year coach, of All-Tournament selection Wallace, who scored 44 points in the semifinal and final. Willie Pantoja, Casey Sheehan and Wallace combined for 22 of Athena’s 24 fourth-quarter points. Pantoja hit his first three 3-pointers in the second half and the Trojans hit 64.7 percent of their shots. “I just got the ball, shot it every time and it went in,” said Pantoja, a senior who finished with nine points. “Casey did a good job getting me the ball and I was wide-open. ”Chris Culver scored the Eagles’ last seven points, but his tying 3-point shot missed, Jeremy Jackson’s follow-up missed and the clock ran out. “This was crazy, the kind of game you hope for when you’re little and dreaming of playing for a championship,” said Sheehan, a junior who earned tournament MVP honors after scoring 15 points and adding 5 assists, 4 rebounds and 3 steals. “Then when you get it, it’s unreal; but we won and that’s the best feeling.” The Trojans will face Gates Chili in the AA state qualifier. Culver finished with 20 points and five steals. “It’s very frustrating to come so close. … these guys really wanted this badly,” Irondequoit coach Chris Cardon said. “They wore their hearts and emotions on their sleeves and this is a real sad locker room. But I’m real proud of these guys.” Of the active Section V high schools, only York (1939), Belfast (1940) and North Rose-Wolcott (1943) have gone longer without winning sectionals.

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