The night began with the girls basketball game, featuring the Blue Team as the home team and the Red Team as the visitors. The Blue Team featured players from Chautauqua Lake, Forestville, Fredonia, Jamestown, Pine Valley and Silver Creek. The Red Team had players from Cassadaga Valley, Clymer, Frewsburg, Maple Grove, Panama, Southwestern and Westfield.

“I was really excited. I knew it was going to be fun,” said Westfield’s Sophia DeMarco, a member of the Red Team. “It was good to have one last fun game.”

When the final buzzer sounded, it was the Red Team that was able to celebrate with a 58-28 victory over the Blue Team, but both sides appeared to cherish the experience as a whole more than the final score on Wednesday.

“I absolutely loved it, because I got to meet a bunch of new girls from both teams,” said Fredonia’s Grace Mroczka, a member of the Blue Team. “When I played against them (at Fredonia) I always thought they were the enemy, but now they are my friends. … It was a lot of fun. I would totally do it again.”

Westfield’s Sophia DeMarco drives to the basket whil being defended by Silver Creek’s Emma Rice during the Chautauqua County Exceptional Seniors girls all-star game Wednesday night at Dods Hall. Photo by Roger Coda

Early on during the game, the Red Team established its dominance. After the first quarter, the Red Team had a 16-2 lead. It stayed a double digit advantage until the final three minutes of the second quarter, when Fredonia’s Mroczka scored eight straight points for the Blue Team to cut the Red Team lead to 20-12 at halftime.

“I felt like I was on top of the world. Everyone was up and cheering for me, and I felt like it gave the team good momentum too. It was a lot of fun,” said Mroczka.

The Red Team started the second half just as it did the first half. After an 11-0 run through the first 3:15 of the second half, the Red Team led 31-12. It remained a double digit lead the rest of the way. The Red Team had a 42-21 lead after three quarters and outscored the Blue Team 16-7 in the final quarter.

“I thought we played really well together, especially for not ever playing together before. I thought it went really well,” said DeMarco.

Panama teammates Abi Lisciandro and Alexis Marsh each connected from beyond the arc on back-to-back possessions in the final two minutes to close out the scoring for the winners. Marsh was named the MVP of the game, with 12 points to lead all scorers.

BOYS

BLUE 97, RED 90

Before the boys basketball All-Star game even began, the Red Team’s rim was rattling over and over from slam dunk after slam dunk in the warm-up line. The customary focus that accompanies a pregame warmup was replaced with a playful excitement to show off for everyone in the gym.

That didn’t change once the action began, but with 3:50 left in the game, you never would’ve guessed the game was as light-hearted an affair as it started.

With 3:50 remaining in the second half, Jamestown’s Shaheem Freeney, of the Blue Team, got into an altercation with members of the Red Team, including Fredonia’s Nate Shuart and Forestville’s Luke Szumigala. Freeney had to be pulled away by coaches and refs to calm down.

Once he gathered himself, Freeney hit a pair of technical foul free-throws to take the lead and the Blue Team never relinquished it. Freeney punctuated the game with an emphatic buzzer-beating slam and hung on the rim to celebrate a 97-90 Blue Team victory over the Red Team All-Stars at SUNY Fredonia on Wednesday night.

Earlier in the game, things were much less tense. At the 13:15 mark of the first half, Silver Creek’s Brady Woleben broke away from the defense for a wide open path to the rim. When he chose to lay the ball in, rather than dunk it as he did time and time again in warmups, his Red Team teammates rose from the bench in playful frustration, ribbing their All-Star teammate for the conservative approach.

Less than a minute later, Red Team big man Brady Andrews pulled up from beyond the arc and rolled a 3-pointer around the rim and in. The only thing more thunderous than the crowd’s reaction was that of Andrews, who pumped his fist and roared in celebration.

The Red Team held a sizable lead at that point, and on the next possession after Andrews’ 3-pointer, Woleben finally gave the crowd – and his teammates – what they were waiting for, with the game’s first slam dunk. Halfway through the first half, Woleben drilled a 3-pointer to give the Red Team a 32-16 lead.

The Blue Team wouldn’t go quietly, however. After a playful exchange in pregame introductions where Red Team head coach Collin Mulcahy – who is also the Brocton Bulldogs varsity boys basketball head coach – denied Blue Team member Evan Hauser, of Westfield, a pregame handshake, Hauser nodded as he walked away as if he vowed to get his revenge during the game. With 5:30 left in the first half, Hauser drilled a 3-pointer right in front of Mulcahy’s bench, then he turned to stare him down. The two shared a glance before both grinned ear to ear and laughed.

The Red Team held a 52-45 lead at halftime. That lead quickly evaporated in the second half, as the Blue Team tied the score at 57 with 15:00 left in the game. The Blue Team took a 60-57 lead on a 3-pointer from Jamestown’s Daunte Garland, then doubled that lead on an and-one layup by Chautauqua Lake’s Zach Fischer.

The Blue Team, with representatives from Chautauqua Lake, Clymer, Jamestown, Panama, Sherman, Southwestern and Westfield, extended its lead to double digits with strong shooting in the second half from beyond the arc.

The Red Team, consisted of members from Brocton, Cassadaga Valley, Forestville, Fredonia, Frewsburg, Maple Grove, Pine Valley and Silver Creek, got back into it after Fredonia’s Keith Piper made a pair of 3-pointers of his own, the last of which banked in off the glass. On the next possession, the Red Team took the lead back, 76-75 with just over seven minutes remaining in the contest.

Fischer gave the Blue Team the lead back on another and-one layup. With 6:46 left, the Blue Team led 79-76. After the score was tied at 80, Brocton’s Bubba Brown scores five straight points to give the Red Team an 85-80 lead, but the Blue Team evened the score at 85 before things got chippy with 3:50 to go.

“It was insane,” said Brown of the atmosphere throughout the game. “There were a lot of people here – a great crowd, really loud. It was kind of hard to hear. … It was fun. it came down to the wire – tough, intense, competitive. I had an amazing time.”

The rest of the way, the Blue Team stayed calm and collected to notch the victory. What will be remembered most of all by both teams, however, was the competitive atmosphere not many would have expected in an All-Star game.

“It was fun. Usually in All-Star games, no one is going 100 percent. I liked the competition,” said Fischer, the game’s MVP with 14 points to lead the winning team.

Keith Piper, Nate Shuart and Brady Woleben all had 12 points for the Red Team in defeat.