Haldane beat Keio 50-24 to win the Class C final at the Westchester County Center Feb. 29, 2016.
Haldane’s Allison Chiera, left, fights for a loose ball Keio’s Mako Morozumi during the Class C final at the Westchester County Center Feb. 29, 2016. Haldane won 50-24.
Haldane players celebrate after beating Keio 50-24 to win the Class C final at the Westchester County Center Feb. 29, 2016.
Haldane’s Allison Chiera drives between Keio’s Hana Nakajima (3) and Kaoru Umeda (23) during the Class C final at the Westchester County Center Feb. 29, 2016. Haldane won 50-24.
WHITE PLAINS – The tale of the tape said the Section 1 Class C girls basketball final shouldn’t be a contest.
In the blue corner stood Haldane, with 22 championships to its credit in less than three decades, and in the red corner stood Keio, which was seeking its first-ever title.
The top-seeded Unicorns dropped two regular-season games to Hamilton, which was thwarted Saturday by Haldane on the same Westchester County Center court as the championship game.
Keio hung with the two-time defending champs through one quarter, tying the Blue Devils, before Haldane pulled away at the end of the second and before it completely broke the game open in the third for a 50-24 win.
“It’s a great accomplishment for us to get back here, to win three in a row, and just to play Keio, being the number one seed,” Blue Devils head coach Tyrone Searight said. “I thought they gave us a good challenge in the first half, to wake the girls up.”
“I thought we were just a little bigger and we were faster than them, and I knew we would probably eventually wear them down,” he added.
Haldane beat Keio 50-24 to win the Class C final at the Westchester County Center Feb. 29, 2016.
Keio ends its season at 15-7, setting a program record for wins in a single-season.
Haldane sophomore forward Allison Chiera dominated the paint for 24 points en route to tournament MVP honors. Blue Devils junior Missy Lisikatos joined her on the all-tournament team.
Keio’s Hana Nakajima and Marina Kofukugawa and North Salem freshman Grace Curran rounded out the Class C all-tournament team.
The Blue Devils will play Section 9 champion Pine Plains in the state regional semifinal Wednesday at the County Center at 4:30 p.m., a rematch of last year’s 59-58 overtime thrilling loss that Searight and Co. have been hoping to avenge.
“We let that game slip away from us,” Searight said. “I told those girls, ‘I promise you, we’re going to see them again,’ and I have a better plan for them to play.”
Searight and Chiera said the familiar setting of the County Center will give the Blue Devils an advantage this time around.
“Obviously, we were really upset about that game,” Chiera said. “We came here for two games already, so I guess it’s going to feel like a home-court advantage.”
Twitter: @Zacchio_LoHud, @LoHudGirlsHoops
