GLENS FALLS — The team lined up together on the court to pose for the cameras during the postgame ceremonies. Sad faces filled the photos.
In the big picture, this was a season of Bay Shore boys basketball brilliance. Lengthy title droughts were extinguished — first Suffolk championship since 2004 and first Long Island championship since 1981.
The Marauders showed up Sunday at Cool Insuring Arena in search of the program’s first state crown. They had 25 wins to show for their first 25 games.
But on the last day of the season, they fell one game short of perfection.
Final score for the Class AAA championship game: Section II champ Green Tech 79, Bay Shore 63.
Final score for the Marauders’ season: 25-1.
“It hurts, but in the back of our mind, we’ve still got to think we made history,” junior point guard Carter Wilson said after holding his team’s state finalist plaque during the photo op, which followed a game in which he topped Bay Shore with 20 points.
The Soaring Eagles from Albany were the ones flashing the smiles. They finished 20-6 and looked every bit the part of a champion. It was the program’s first state title since 2014 in AA and second overall.
“I’m just happy for the kids,” coach DJ Jones said. “It hasn’t really set in for me yet. These guys put in the hard work. Thirty-two minutes for the rest of their lives. Now they can relax and call themselves state champs.”
They were really a handful for Bay Shore with a pair of towers down low and three guards who could really shoot from deep, including a junior who put his NBA range on display.
Haisi Mayben hit five long-distance threes and scored 23 points. Ramere Brown also made five threes and scored 21. And Indavier Barnes nailed a trio of threes and scored 12.
Green Tech went 14-for-25 from three-point range. And those two bigs, 6-8 U’Mier Graham and 6-7 Olivan Owens, combined for 17 rebounds, 11 by Graham.
“I knew before this game started that they were a very good team,”…
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