Sophomore Najier Daniels came off the bench to score all seven of his points in the fourth quarter as Hilton pulled away late with 31 fourth quarter points in a 76-58 boy’s basketball victory over visiting Spencerport.
The Cadets built a nine point first quarter lead and extended it to as many as 15 in the second quarter as sophomore Tah-jae Hill netted half of his team best 24 points.
But Spencerport came out of the halftime locker room in a 1-2-2 trap that gave the Cadets trouble and allowed the Rangers to outscore them 19-11and cut the lead to as few as three points thanks to a combined 12 points from seniors Malcom McCollough and Josh Reding.
It remained a two possession game until the final minutes before Hilton scored on four straight trips with Mitchell Carr knocking down a three-pointer, Daniels scoring consecutive field goals and Noah Malta hitting a pair of free throws to push their lead back to 15. The Cadets finished the game off by going eight-of-ten from the free throw line in the final minutes.
Hill finished with a double-double as he had ten rebounds to go with his 24 points. Cadet senior Joe Lipani had 12 points with six assists, Carr finished with 16 points and six rebounds while Malta and Daniels each added seven points.
For the Rangers, Reding led all scorers with 25 points with three assists and four rebounds. McCollough had 11 points with six rebounds, four assists and three blocks while senior Noah Mundt, who missed several minutes after taking a hard fall in the third quarter, still managed to score ten points with seven boards.
Both teams had 8-10 records after the game and stood middle of the pack Section V playoff seedings with one game remaining in the regular season for each.
