ONEONTA – Perhaps looking ahead isn’t such a bad thing after all.
Oxford and its head coach Tim Davis put it on the record from the start of the season that the goal this season is a return to the Section IV, Class C championship game.
On the road to that stated mission, Oxford made a pit stop at the Midstate Athletic Conference title game Saturday night against Sidney at SUNY Oneonta, and defeated the Warriors with room to spare, 48-28.
It was the fourth league championship game appearance in five years for Oxford (17-3), and first win among the lot. “This is certainly nice for us as a team,” Davis said. “Especially for people like Alex (Champlin), who has been in the finals the last three years. But he is our biggest cheerleader to get back to the sectional championship game. I told the team this was kind of like the pretest before the big one.”
Champlin scored 18 points, and surprisingly, the Blackhawks would have won without any of those markers. More surprising is Oxford controlled a Sidney team that defeated Oxford on its home floor two months ago my nine points, and was coming off a thoroughly impressive division tie-breaker win over Walton earlier in the week.
Outside of Dylan Umbra and his team-high 16 points, Sidney had little offense for Oxford to combat. “We watched the game film (of the Sidney loss) over and over, and we made some obvious changes,” Davis said.
The first change was moving Champlin to the defensive stopper’s role on Sidney’s Mike Guerriere. Guerriere broke loose for 19 in the first meeting including four three balls, but had just seven points on Saturday. Double figures scorer, Quinn Dorsey, was also blanked on the day.
About the only distress Oxford suffered came at the end of the first quarter and early in the second quarter. Umbra put back an offensive rebound closing Oxford’s lead to 12-9, and Aaron Wood hit a three ball at the quarter’s buzzer to knot the game up at 12-12.
Umbra answered an Oxford bucket to tie the game at 14 early in the second quarter, thereafter, it was all Oxford. The Blackhawks, who won their 14th straight game as well, ended the quarter on a 9-2 run. Tom Gould hit two buckets on his way to a 17-point game, Champlin canned a three ball, and Brett Trask sunk two foul shots.
Sidney came as close as 30-24 in the third quarter after a pair of Umbra free throws, but 4-for-15 shooting – and a bevy of turnovers – conspired against the offense over the middle periods.
Cory Seiler helped advance the lead back to double digits at the end of the third quarter when he was fouled on a halfcourt shot at the buzzer. He drained all three free throw attempts raising the lead to 37-24.
“We kind of lost our focus at the end of the first quarter and early in the second quarter,” Davis said. “We were taking outside shots, and we didn’t need to do that since we were having a lot of success inside. After a timeout, we were more patient getting into the interior of their zone.”
Trask and Gould had four points in dominating last quarter to cap a convincing win. “We’ve come a long way with our offense and role players have come a long way,” Davis said. “It was unbelievable how good our defense was tonight. Sidney was just stymied.”
Oxford hosts Tioga Wednesday in the first round of the sectional playoffs.
Sidney: Michael Neil, 0; Nolan Van Fleet, 0; Aaron Wood, 2 0-0-5; Tyler Kane, 0 0-1-0; Taylor Lissandrello, 0; Mike Guerriere, 3 0-0-7; Dylan Umbra, 6 4-4-16; Tyler Pixley, 0; Tyler Smith, 0; Alex Heil, 0; Quinn Dorsey, 0 0-1-0; Tyler Mason, 0. Totals: 11 4-6-28.
Oxford: Brett Trask, 1 2-4-4; Chris Covey, 0; Cory Seiler, 2 3-3-7; Alex Champlin, 7 3-3-18; Zack Barry, 0; Ethan Paul, 0; Devin Slater, 0; Ralph Renaud, 0; Jeremy Nelson, 1 0-0-2; Tom Gould, 8 1-3-17. Totals: 19 9-13-48.
Sidn. 12 4 8 4–28
Oxf. 12 11 14 11–48
Fouled out: none. Three-point goals: (O) Champlin, (S) Guerriere, Wood.