FRANKLINVILLE — The first possession of the fourth quarter was only a sign of what was to come for Elliot Bowen.
The Ellicottville boys basketball team fed its 6-foot-5 junior star, who scored inside, drew a foul and sank the ensuing free throw for a conventional 3-point play. Suddenly, after trailing by nine points at halftime, the Eagles had their first lead of the ballgame, 42-40.
The rest of the night, Franklinville would have no answer for Bowen, who scored 13 of his 21 points in the fourth quarter of Wednesday’s matchup of top-ranked Big 30 small schools. More importantly for No. 2 Ellicottville, after 32 minutes, it was the owner of a 53-52 win over the poll-leading Panthers.
Bowen completed the performance by pulling down 20 rebounds for the Eagles (7-2) in the CCAA East II opener.
Five days earlier, he had been held to a season-low four points in a 49-46 loss to Randolph.
“He’s toughest on himself,” Ellicottville coach Dave McCann said. “When he felt like he didn’t play very well against Randolph the other night, he really made it a point to not have a mistake like that again. And to the credit of the kids, I think they all felt that way.”
Junior Austin Grinols added 13 points and classmate Griffin Chudy 11 for the Eagles.
McCann credited his team for making sharp entry passes to Bowen, putting the big man in spots to perform in the post. He accounted for all but one of Ellicottville’s fourth-quarter points. The Eagles didn’t score over the final 3:40 but had led 53-44 before Franklinville junior Sam Erickson nearly rallied the Panthers (4-3) to victory.
“Obviously we’re always trying to get him the ball,” McCann said. “Sometimes we force things into double-teams and triple-teams … We can make an extra pass and have a better angle.”
To Franklinville coach Jeff Haskell, Bowen’s success came down to positioning.
“He was able to get down low a little easier than he was early,” Haskell said. “To put it nicely, he got lower in the fourth quarter than in the first three quarters. When he gets that low, we can’t stop him. The first half, we kept him out of the paint and we did a really nice job. I’m not saying we didn’t keep him out of the paint in the fourth quarter, but he wasn’t out of the paint.”
Erickson (21 points) scored the game’s final eight points — six from the free-throw line. With 38.6 seconds left and the Panthers trailing 53-51, he went to the stripe and made his first attempt but missed the second and Bowen grabbed the rebound.
After two timeouts, Franklinville fouled Noah Stuve, who missed the front end of a one-and-one with 10.2 seconds on the clock. After a Panther rebound, Darren Clark’s contested leaner missed, and the rebound bounced to midcourt as time expired.
Franklinville withstood having Erickson, its 29-points-per-game star, on the bench with three fouls for the final 6:47 of the second quarter. During that span, Clark, a recent Fillmore transfer making his first start, scored seven of his 11 points to give the Panthers a 31-22 halftime lead.
Isaac Kopp finished with 10 points for Franklinville, which had moved up to No. 9 in the Class D state rankings after an 18-point IAABO Tournament win over Chautauqua Lake, which had beaten both Ellicottville and Olean High.
Ellicottville, meanwhile, had fallen behind the Panthers in the state and local rankings following its defeat by Randolph last week. The Eagles are 11th in this week’s state poll.
“The loss the other night bugged them, not from a ranking standpoint but from a guts standpoint,” McCann said. “I think they felt that they’re definitely a better team than what they showed in that game.
“Any time we play these guys there’s a lot of intensity — it doesn’t matter if it’s a summer league game, it doesn’t matter if it’s a regular season game, it doesn’t matter if it’s a playoff game. This is a pretty big rivalry for us, and the kids were ready. I give them a ton of credit in the way they approached practice Monday and Tuesday and the way they came ready to play tonight.”
But McCann also knows there are more battles with Franklinville ahead — at the very least Feb. 6 in Ellicottville. A meeting in the Section 6 Class D semifinals or finals at Jamestown Community College is a strong possibility as well. Neither team started a senior Wednesday, so next season could be the same story.
“I think you just saw Round 1 of what could be several,” McCann said. “But we’re going to continue to improve, and they’re going to continue to improve.”
Ellicottville (53)
Leiper 0 0-0 0, Stuve 2 0-2 4, Rowland 2 0-0 4, Chudy 5 1-2 11, Grinols 5 0-0 13, Bowen 8 5-8 21. Totals: 22 6-12 53.
Franklinville (52)
Blecha 2 1-2 5, Erickson 7 7-10 21, Pitner 0 0-0 0, Kopp 4 0-0 10, Clark 5 0-0 11, Burton 1 2-2 5. Totals: 19 10-14 52.
Ellicottville 14 22 39 53
Franklinville 18 31 40 52
Three-point goals: Ellicottville 3 (Grinols 3); Franklinville 4 (Kopp 2, Clark, Burton). Total fouls: Ellicottville 18, Franklinville 16. Fouled out: Grinols, Burton.
JV: Ellicottville won.
