Devin Dillon, Chaminade retain NSCHSAA boys basketball championship with victory over St. John the Baptist
Devin Dillon of Chaminade reacts as the final seconds tick down on the Flyers' 66-49 win over St. John the Baptist in the Nassau-Suffolk CHSAA boys basketball final at Hofstra's Mack Sports Complex on Tuesday. Credit: James Escher
It was 30 years ago when Chaminade claimed its second straight NSCHSAA boys basketball championship. Then 10 years passed, then 20, then 25. And it still hadn’t managed to repeat the difficult back-to-back feat.
Finally, three decades later, it happened again.
The top-seeded Flyers defeated No. 6 St. John the Baptist, 66-49, Tuesday night at Hofstra to take the league’s tournament title for the second straight year.
“It means everything,” said senior Devin Dillon, who scored 19 points and was named the championship game MVP.
This marked the program’s 11th NSCHSAA tournament title overall.
“It nice to win back-to-back, but it’s a different group,” coach Dan Feeney said.
DJ Lisbon scored 16 for St. John the Baptist (14-12), which had beaten No. 3 Holy Trinity in the quarterfinals and No. 2 St. Anthony’s in the semifinals.
Now let’s recap another impressive postseason run: Across these last four seasons, Chaminade has been to four league finals and won three of them. They’ve also taken three consecutive regular-season titles.
“We’ve got guys that buy in,” Feeney said. “They do what we ask them to. Every kid wants to play a lot. Every kid wants to score. There’s a lot of guys on this team that sacrifice for that. It takes an entire team.”
The NSCHSAA champion gets a bye to Saturday’s 1 p.m. CHSAA Class A state final at Hofstra. The Flyers will face the winner of Friday’s semifinal at Fordham between Monsignor Martin champ Bishop Timon-St. Jude and city champ McClancy.
“Last year, we lost (in the state semifinals); it was the worst feeling in the world,” Dillon said. “… We’re going to give it our all.”
Chaminade closed the first quarter with a 7-2 run to go up 17-11, then extended it to a 20-6 run.
When Ricky Gunther nailed a three from the left corner to cap this stretch, the Flyers owned a 30-15 lead.
They took a 33-21 advantage into the locker room at halftime.
The margin sat at 11 with almost three minutes gone in the third.
Then Dillon drove for two, Gunther put in a miss and Dillon made two free throws. It was 41-24.
“It’s heartbreaking,” Cougars coach Jake Ellis said. “… I sum (the season) up to a great career for a lot of our seniors. … So this year was just a microcosm of the entire experience that we’ve had with some of these seniors. I love them.”
