Section 9 Class B boys semifinals

Burke ends another Sullivan West season

Eagles thrash Bulldogs with torrential early scoring

By RICHARD A. ROSS

GOSHEN, NY - Following their emotional quarterfinal win over James I. O’Neill on February 27, Sullivan West seniors Kevin Cappiello and Derek Hahn couldn’t wait for their crack at Burke in the upcoming semis on March 2.

With their high school basketball careers drawing to a close, Hahn, Cappiello and Alan Ackermann, who have been a part of the great rivalry that has defined Sullivan West’s recent basketball history with Burke, hoped to break the hex that had left them on the wrong end of sectional game outcomes against their arch rivals.

Simply put, Sullivan West and Burke have become familiar foes. As it turned out, a bit too familiar.

Playing against each other for the ninth time in the past three years, both teams figured they knew each other well. But when it mattered most, Burke proved to be far more conversant with the Dawgs than vice-versa.

After winning two close games against Sullivan West this season, the light went on in the head of Burke coach Doug Janezcko: Take Cappiello out of the mix by a dint of overwhelming defense and you can limit Sullivan West’s offense to a mere trickle.

Burke’s strategy was to make someone else beat them besides the tireless all-star. True, Hahn was a big threat too; he had just turned in the best game of his career in a monstrous output against O’Neill that yielded 20 points, 21 rebounds and eight blocked shots. But Burke wasn’t interested in offering Hahn their floor as his next big stage to perform on. As they saw it, Hahn alone was not a threat, especially if Cappiello couldn’t get the ball to him.

Implementing that strategy was half the equation. Hitting shots on the offensive end was the other part and hit them they did.

Burke roared out to a huge lead by the end of the first quarter as it seemed that every shot that went into the air of their cozy home gym found its way through the cylinder. Meanwhile, the Dawgs committed turnovers and couldn’t buy a basket.

For all intents and purposes, this one was over early. Burke’s Derrick Stanton not only inserted the dagger into Sullivan West’s heart with his deft three-point shooting, he turned it five times as he buried shot after shot from beyond the arc on his way to a game-high 24 points. Sean Gillen’s 14 points also paced Burke. Hahn did his best by putting in 19, but it was too little and too late.

Clearly for Stanton, the transfer from O’Neill to Burke proved to be a prescient one.

Stanton would go on to do similar damage to Marlboro in the final as he would score 16 of his 22 points in the fourth quarter and overtime to propel Burke to another title in its storied history.

Once again, for all of its effort, grit and regular-season successes, the Bulldogs ended up being just another notch in Burke’s gun, a sad and disconsolate end to the careers of such fine players as Cappiello, Hahn, Ackermann and guard Kienan Garn.

Sullivan West players knew all along that the sectionals would put them on a collision course with Burke, but coach Bob Menges and the team’s core of seniors felt that they could play a competitive game and if things broke their way, win and advance to the finals.

The last time Sullivan West played Burke in the finals it was in 2005, a game the Dawgs lost and were subsequently deemed the winner of by virtue of Burke’s playing of an ineligible Jason Green.

The retroactive granting of the league and sectional titles were little consolation to the players who left their hearts and souls on the court at Sullivan County Community College, where Green had poured in 18 points to help Burke’s comeback win that was subsequently voided a year later.

Cappiello played in that game, and this final one against Burke offered one of Section Nine’s most respected players his last opportunity for sweet and final redemption.

The last thing he expected was to walk into a buzz saw.

The fourth-seeded Dawgs ended their season at 12-10. Burke followed up their 59-48 whipping of Sullivan West by escaping an upset in the finals for the second year in a row. Last year, they lost to fifth-seeded Spackenkill and this year it was seventh-seeded Cinderella Marlboro that nearly ruined their dance. The Dukes had already ousted number-two Pine Plains and had come back to overtake three-seeded Highland in overtime. Although they tied Burke up in the waning seconds of regulation in the final on March 3, Burke and Stanton read them their last rites in the finals. Burke was slated to face Section One’s Briarcliff at SUNY New Paltz on March 6 in the first round of the state tournament. Visit www.rivereportersports.com for pictures and the far happier story of the Bulldogs’ quarterfinal gritty win over O’Neill, as well as pictures and the story of Burke’s title win over Marlboro.