Darnell Evans points way as Amityville rallies past Miller Place

Darnell Evans and the Amityville boys basketball team gave the Fred Williams Memorial Gymnasium a proper send-off.

With the quaint Amityville High School gym dating back to the 1950s set to be razed and a new gymnasium being built on school grounds for next season, the court that has hosted many Amityville championships was able to send one more Warriors squad to a title game.

Top-seeded Amityville defeated No. 4 Miller Place, 89-69, in a boys basketball Suffolk Class A semifinal Wednesday night. The Warriors advance to play No. 2 Kings Park in the Suffolk Class A final at Whitman High School Saturday at 2:30 p.m.

The county championship and any subsequent contests will be played on neutral courts.

“There are so many great, great games that have been played in this gym going way back to the 60s, 70s, 80s,” coach Gordon Thomas said about the Fred Williams Memorial Gymnasium. “So I said ‘Listen, you guys don’t want to be the guys who lost the last game here.’ … they would have never heard the end of that.”

But a glance at the final score doesn’t tell the story of the game. Miller Place led by three points at halftime, and Amityville held a four-point advantage after the third quarter. Then the Warriors opened the fourth quarter on a 14-2 run over the first two minutes and outscored Miller Place by 34-18 in the period.

“Early they played a little harder, they played with hustle, they crashed the boards,” Warriors guard Evans said. “But we just came out stronger and harder [in the second half].”

Starting with Evans — who Thomas called the “nucleus” of the team — with 10 of his game-high 29 points in the third quarter, to swing control the game to the Warriors.

“I’m a pass-first point guard,” Evans said. “So I’m going to score when I need to score. I get my teammates involved and when they are keying on them, it’s open for me, so I’m going to score when I’m open.”

Amityville (20-2) had a balanced scoring effort behind Evans, with Divaahd Lucas (18 points), Armoni Zeigler (16 points), Stephen Augustine (12 points) and Myles Goddard (nine points).

“We play strong and play as a team,” said Zeigler, who scored 14 of his points in the second half. “If one person’s off one day, then we have more options that we can play with.”

Tim Hirdt and Matt Frank had 17 and 16 points, respectively, for Miller Place (17-5).

The fourth quarter Wednesday showed why Amityville went undefeated in league play this season, as the Warriors look toward a run at a potential state title.

“I tell these guys when they share the ball and they play as a team, they look great and they realized that,” Thomas said. “They want to play for the championship Saturday and the only way they are going to do it is play as a team and get the win.”