BINGHAMTON –– Danny Murphy banked in a shot with 10 seconds remaining to give the No. 1 Dryden boys basketball team a two-point lead over No. 2 Waverly and the Lions hung on in the final seconds to win their first ever Section IV Class B title by a score of 51-48 Sunday at Visions Veterans Memorial Arena.
Dryden move on to the regional championship game, where it will take on either Woodlands of Section I or Burke Catholic of Section IX at a time to be announced March 16 at Visions Veterans Memorial Arena.
With the score tied at 48 and under 30 seconds left, the ball ended up in Murphy’s hands. He worked the clock down and patiently waited to run a play. Xander Scott eventually came up and set a screen for Murphy, which initiated a switch from Wavely’s defenders. Murphy then blew by his defender and sunk a shot off the glass to put Dryden up two.
The Lions then forced a turnover, Scott sunk one of two free throws and a full-court heave from the Wolverines missed as time expired.
Dryden did not have a set play with a chance to take a late lead, but Murphy knew what would give his team the best chance at scoring.
“I have a great two-man game with Xander and with it being the end of the game, we figured it’s in our hands, don’t give it back to them,” Murphy said. “We had to make a play in that spot. We put it down to 10 seconds, got a great screen, got the mismatch we wanted and got a great shot.”
Despite it being such a big spot after such a chaotic fourth quarter, Dryden head coach Zach LeViere trusted his players with everything.
Daniel is a great guy to have the ball in his hands at the end of the game there,” LeViere said. “He’s hit that shot in a game a thousand times. I’m going to trust these guys because we’re a senior led group and they’ve played a ton of basketball together, and a ton of basketball individually. Making the play in the moment that, we didn’t need to stop it. We let them get their defense set and I trusted the individual talent and decision making on the team.”
Up until Murphy’s late-game heroics, both teams traded shots for all four quarters. Dryden led 11-7 after the first and 22-19 at halftime. Waverly then took a 36-33 lead into the final quarter.
It was a balanced attack offensively from Dryden, with each player having their own impact. Murphy finished with 15 points and ignited the offense in the first quarter with seven of his team’s 11 points. Scott finished with 16 points, with nine coming in the second half. Scott also added seven blocks. Luke Eshelman finished with eight points and hit timely 3-pointers in the first and third quarters. Peter Nydam finished with just seven points, but five came in the fourth. Nydam also hit a huge 3-pointer when the Lions were down six points to cut the deficit to three in the fourth quarter.
There were a lot of emotions from both players and coaches after the first sectional title in program history.
“It feels great,” Murphy said. “We’ve been playing together for so long. That builds a lot of competitiveness and with it being senior year, you just got to trust the process. We just keep working, all of us together.”
That’s the first one ever, so I’m feeling all the emotions,” LeViere, a Dryden alum, added. “Just so much pride and joy. It’s awesome. I’m kind of at a loss of words.”
