Bears Avenge Their 2016 Playoff Loss to Marlboro
It took them two years to do it, but the Briarcliff Bears finally got some sweet revenge against Marlboro.
Junior guard Miles Jones scored a game-high 18 points, while Spencer McCann provided a dozen rebounds and nine blocked shots as the Bears held off a late challenge to defeat the Section 9 champion Iron Dukes 57-51 in last Tuesday evening’s opening-round Class B regional game at Mount Saint Mary College in Newburgh and avenge their loss to them in the same gym back in 2016.
“We still have a few guys from that team, that were part of that,” said Bears coach Cody Moffett, recalling the season-ending loss to Marlboro two seasons back that left his seniors in tears. “So they understood it. They saw how real that was, the passion and competitiveness that those guys had. They wanted to make sure that when the game was over, they left everything they had on the floor and hopefully wouldn’t be in that position.”
Unlike the last time the teams had met, Briarcliff was not forced to play from behind all night long. The Bears got early 3-point baskets from Jones, McCann and Jackson Gonseth to jump out to a 9-0 advantage. Marlboro didn’t score its first bucket of the game until midway through the first quarter and found itself trailing 17-8 heading to the second.
“We talked about the fact that they start strong,” said Moffett about the message to his players about the Iron Dukes. “So we wanted to make sure that we started strong as well. Obviously you want to start every game strong, but that was something we emphasized as far as we didn’t want to come out with a relaxed attitude or nerves or anything like that. Let’s just go out and play our brand and take it to ‘em.”
Jack Ryan, who finished with 14 points, made a pair of 3-pointers in the second quarter to help the Bears open up a lead as large as 12 points. Briarcliff took a 34-24 margin into the halftime break, but Gonseth picked up his third foul with a minute left before intermission and would eventually foul out early in the fourth quarter.
An old-fashioned 3-point play by Ryan to start the second half gave the Bears their biggest lead of the game, 13 points, but when the Iron Dukes’ Jaiden Allen closed the third quarter by drilling an off-balance 3-pointer from the right corner to beat the buzzer the Briarcliff lead had been sliced to 47-42.
Jones connected on a 3-pointer from the top of the key just 15 seconds into the fourth quarter, stretching the Bears’ cushion back up to eight points. But Marlboro, the team that handed the Bears their only two losses of the 2015-16 season, then went on a 7-0 spurt to close within a point. Even worse for Briarcliff during the Iron Duke run, Gonseth was whistled for two offensive fouls a minute apart and had to watch the game’s final 5:54 from the bench.
“Yeah, it happens, it happens,” said Moffett about losing one of his key players in crunch time. “Things happen. But we’re just focused on what the next play is. And these guys talk about the next play, the next play, the next play. And, fortunately, we were able to make the next play after that.”
The Bears went scoreless for over four and a half minutes until Ryan provided two free throws with 3:04 remaining. Jones soon followed with a pullup jumper just inside the 3-point arc that built the lead back up to 54-49. A big block by McCann at the defensive end 10 seconds later persuaded the Iron Dukes to spend the rest of the contest firing away from beyond the 3-point line.
The Iron Dukes couldn’t hit on any of those late-game 3-point tries and wound up getting shut out for nearly three and a half minutes until Allen made two free throws with 10.4 seconds to go and the outcome already decided. It was Jones’ final two points of the night, from the free-throw line with 14.8 seconds left, that sealed the Bears’ victory and sent them into the regional final four days later at Pace University.
“We just talked about composure,” said Moffett about the team’s tense huddle midway through the fourth quarter when the Iron Dukes were coming on strong and their large home crowd was in a frenzy. “Composure and running our stuff, getting back to doing what we wanted to do. Any time you’re at this point, deep in the season, you’re gonna be playing good teams. So you can’t expect to just come out there and those guys just give you the game or anything like that.”
Andy is a sports editor at Examiner Media, covering seven high schools in the mid-Westchester region with a notebook and camera. He began there in the fall of 2007 following 15 years as a candid photographer for the largest school picture company in the tri-state area.
Read more of Andy’s full bio here.
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