In front of a nearly packed house, the Blue teams earned a clean sweep of the Red teams, as the girls game finished with the southern Chautauqua County all-stars coming out on top 107-82 while the boys held on for a 100-95 win over their northern county counterparts.

“This is always a blast and a pleasure,” boys Blue team head coach Brady Deuink said. “I think I’ve been doing this since 2011 in some capacity or the other and it’s always good to get the kids together in a little bit different light. We’re used to them being on the court and us being in the stripes, so it was nice to be able to get them in practice and get to know them a little bit better. There’s some real neat kids on both teams.”

In the opener, the girls Red team opened the game with an 11-1 run, but a 14-2 spurt by the Blue team gave them a 15-13 lead with 12:40 remaining in the first half and they never trailed again.

“I pretty much told the next group of guards to go in and light it up,” girls Blue team head coach Emily Eckwahl said. “And they said, ‘Don’t worry coach, we don’t like to lose.'”

Sherman’s Abigail Cole dribbles around Pine Valley’s Zoe Nelson during the Chautauqua County Exceptional Senior All-Star game at Fredonia High School on Wednesday evening. Photo by Ron Szot

Led by Most Valuable Player, Frewsburg’s Olivia Lynn, the Blue team finished the first half outscoring the Red team, 38-24, to take a commanding 53-37 advantage into the break.

“She was an absolute pleasure to work with,” Eckwahl said of Lynn, who scored 12 of her game-high 21 points in the game’s first 20 minutes. “In fact, I mentioned to my dad (assistant coach Brent Deuink) during the game that this girl just doesn’t stop. She makes a pass and before you know it, she’s posting up in the block and then she’s getting a rebound on the other end. She was just all over the place. She was just wonderful to work with.”

Buckets by Jamestown’s Olivia Reinhardt and Mackenzie Swanson pushed the Blue team’s lead to 57-37, before the Red team was able to put together a quick 10-1 run to pull within 11, 58-47 with 14:32 left in the game.

“This bunch of girls was super sweet,” girls Red team head coach Bryelle Cortright said. “They were very respectful, they were a lot of fun to coach and they really worked hard (Wednesday), so I couldn’t be happier.”

Maple Grove’s Caleigh Swanson and Fredonia’s Caitlyn Cybart led the way with 4 points each during the stretch.

Cassadaga Valley’s Mikayla Falkner dribbles around Southwestern’s Sydney Burk. Photo by Ron Szot

However, the Blue team went back to work and over the next 4:22 saw its lead move back to 20, 76-56 with 11:10 left in the second half.

“The Blue team was definitely offensively charged,” Cortright said. “They were good. Our girls were good, too, but offensively, I think the Blue team had a little more skill than we did.”

From there, the Blue team salted the game away, as they finished the second half outscoring the Red team, 34-19. Clymer’s Lauren Dunnewold (12), Panama’s Nicole Johnson (12) and Southwestern’s Sydney Burk (13) all finished in double figures.

“It’s really fun to work with athletes that have been around the sport for a long time,” Eckwahl said. “They have just been around the game for so long that they can do things that younger players haven’t quite figured out, so it’s nice to see their athleticism shine.”

For the Red team, Caleigh Swanson had a team-high 18 points, Fredonia’s Hannah Cybart (14) and Caitlyn Cybart (13) combined for 27 points while Westfield’s Rachel Mathews had 11 points in the loss.

“It was a joy to coach all the girls,” Cortright, the Pine Valley varsity head coach, said. “They all are taller than me, so that would have been a definite plus. I love my (Pine Valley) girls, but coaching this group of girls was fun, too.

“The girls picked right up on anything I threw at them,” Cortright added. “They picked up on the inbounds plays really quick, but as far as offensive plays, I just said, ‘Put the ball in the basket and I’ll be happy.’ And they did that. We scored 82 points, so you can’t be upset with that. I know the other team scored 107, but 82 points is a lot and that’s fine with me. They all had a good night.”

In the boys game, it looked like it was going to be an easy night for the Blue team after it built a comfortable 55-36 halftime lead. But the Red team had other ideas in the second half as some what of an actual basketball game broke out.

“I think we tried to stress to them that they have a little bit of pride and bragging rights going on,” boys Red team head coach Kevin Moore said. “And I think that kind of clicked with them a little bit and then Shamon (Stewart) hit some shots, we got some stops. I think that made a big difference.”

The Red team opened the second half by outscoring the Blue team 19-10 over the first 7:27 to pull within 65-55, as Dunkirk’s Shamon Stewart, who had 10 points in the first half, began to heat up.

“Shamon played well,” Moore said. “He carried us. For a kid that I don’t know if he ever really got in game shape all year, he played really well (Wednesday). It was fun.”

Stewart scored 10 of the Red team’s first 23 points of the second half and with 11:28 left in the game, the North County players were down just 68-59.

“It’s fun,” Moore said of coaching the Red Team. “It’s nice to see kids that normally don’t get to play with each other, play with each other in a fun and competitive way.”

Stewart did have some help, as a pair of 3-pointers by Westfield’s Eric Fermier pulled the Red team to within 75-71 with 9:27 left, before a free throw by Silver Creek’s Bryant Jones and 3-pointer by Stewart got the Red team to within a possession of the Blue team’s lead, 77-75, with 7:48 left in regulation.

“Had we won, Shamon would have been the MVP,” Moore said of Stewart, who had a game-high 27 points. “But I think we got some good contributions from everybody. There were some kids that didn’t play well in the first half that gave us a little spark in the second half, so that was good.”

It was a bit of a dogfight the rest of the way, with the Red team pulling ahead 80-79 on a 3-pointer by Dunkirk’s Evon Hernandez with 6:45 remaining. Another 3-pointer, this one by Brocton’s Johnethen Spicer with just under six minutes to play, put the Red team up 84-81, but a trey by the Blue team’s Caleb Caldwell (Frewsburg) tied the game 84-all with 5:40 remaining.

“We were relatively unchallenged in that first half,” Deuink said. “But when the going got tough there in the second half, after that great Red Team comeback, there was definitely a sense of urgency amongst the team to want to capitalize on that big halftime lead and not let it slip away.”

And the Blue team did not let this one slip away, despite the Red team regaining the lead — 93-91 — on a pair of Hernandez free throws with 1:22 remaining. From there, MVP James Rojas (Jamestown) took over as he scored six of his team’s final nine points while Clymer’s Josh VanEarden hit a go-ahead 3-pointer with 41 seconds left, to help the South County to the all-star game sweep.

“We were looking to run a little high screen and roll with (James) Rojas and (Chris) Robson and we had (Josh) VanEarden and Kyle Carpenter in the corners just in case and (the Red Team) helped on defense and we found VanEarden in the corner. It was a heck of a shot.

“He’s one of the most athletic kids we’ve ever had in one of these games since I’ve been a part of it,” Deuink added of Rojas, who finished with a team-high 25 points.. “He’s supremely talented, he can go right or left off the dribble, can take it to the rack and can shoot the 3. We saw his athleticism on display and he was the deserving MVP for the Blue Team.”

Besides Rojas, Sherman’s Robson finished with 15 points on five 3-pointers while Frewsburg’s Cordell O’Brien had 11 points in the win. Meanwhile, for the Red team, Spicer finished with 13 points to join Stewart as the only players with double-digit points while Cassadaga Valley’s Brandon Chamberlin, Fredonia’s Lucas Voss and Fermier all finished with 8 points in the loss.