Cortland Standard .net

By TOM VARTANIAN
Staff Writer
It opened in 1951 as a state of the art facility.
The first game was a professional basketball contest between the Syracuse Nationals and Rochester Royals.
But after 65 seasons, the Homer Central High School gymnasium hosted its final event as the Trojans closed the doors on the aged hardcourt with a 68-55 OHSL Freedom Division victory over Fowler Friday night.
The Trojans finish 5-8 in division play and 8-11 overall heading to sectionals. The Falcons fell to 2-9, 4-13 overall..
Jayden Gavidia scored a game-high 23 points and the Trojans senior netted the final two points for his side with 1:44 left in the contest before heading to the bench.
“It’s a great way to end the regular season,” Gavidia said. “It’s a good way to end things here before the gym gets renovated. I just felt different tonight. I came out with more energy and I was determined to play my best.”
“Jayden really played well tonight,” Homer coach Sean Malone said. “I’m not sure he scored 23 points combined over the last five games. We’ve wanted him to be more aggressive and tonight he was.
“The seniors started tonight,” he added. “They really played much better to start the second half. It was nice for all the guys to go out as winners in their last game ever in this gym.”
Gavidia got off to a slow start this season as he recovered from some nagging football aches and pains, but he finished with a flurry Friday.
“I just did not have that touch at the beginning of the season,” he said. “ I started to get my touch back as the season went along. Tonight I think everything really came together.”
WITH AN ALL-SENIOR starting line-up of Gavidia, Brad Sovocool, Dean Riley, Jackson Dowdle and Drew Cottrell, Homer got off to a slow start and fell behind 14-5. Malone sent junior Jerrad Reiner, the team’s leading scorer this season, and senior Jake Hayes into the game and the duo helped spark a Trojan turnaround. Gavidia buried a 3-pointer before Reiner scored on a driving lay-up and completed the three-point play with a free throw to pull Homer to within 14-11 at the end of the quarter.
Homer completed a10-0 run with Gavidia and Reiner scoring again on drives to the basket for a 15-14 Trojan lead early in the second quarter.
Mykel Hayward stopped the run with a bucket for Fowler and the Falcons retook a 16-15 lead with seven minutes left in the half. It would be the last Fowler lead of the night. The Trojans scored 15 of the next 17 points to take control of the game. Gavidia started the run off a pass from Reiner with 6:40 on the clock. Jacob Rivers completed the run with a 3-pointer off a feed from Sovocool with 2:34 left until the intermission. Sovocool scored on an offensive rebound and a trey from the left wing before his assist to Rivers. The teams traded points until the intermission as the Trojans led 40-26.
The second half saw Homer maintain its advantage. Fowler would make a couple of runs, but the Trojans would counter just as quickly.
It seemed like a quiet ending until tempers flared in the final eight seconds. It started with an altercation between Rivers and Fowler’s leading scorer Omar Short (21 points) and ended with lots of pushing and shoving, plus a wildly thrown punch by Falcon junior Olufela Blue that missed everyone before order was restored. In the end, Rivers, Short and Blue all received technical fouls. Rivers and Blue (12 points), who goes in the record books and the last point scorer in the old gym with his deuce with 1:01 to play, were both ejected and Rivers is now ineligible for the Trojans’ first sectional game.
Nate Cottrell shot the technical free throws from Short’s foul. Riley then took the inbound pass and stood at midcourt as the final seconds ticked off the clock and the gym’s long era came to a close.
Reiner finished with 11 points on the night for Homer and Sovocool netted 10 points.
HOMER WILL NOW set its sights on Section 3 Class A Tournament action. The seedings will be decided Sunday.
“This is such a big deal, especially to the seniors,” Gavidia said of reaching sectionals. “It’s my last year and I’ve been on varsity for four years. I am happy and the team is happy to be going to sectionals. I’m glad to be going on with the senior classmates. I love it.”
“I was hoping Jayden would want to go to sectionals,” Malone said. “He’s coming on, the team did some nice things this season and we made it.”
HOMER JVs started quickly as their 21 point first quarter blast triggered a 56-40 victory over Fowler. The Trojans closed out their season at 12-6.
“This was our best start in a long time, as we were able to turn some of their turnovers into some quick points,” Homer coach Jeff Tabel said. “Bryant Quinlan and Matt Guerrera each scored six points in the first and Matt scored eight more in the third, knocking down two important threes to open things up for us again after Fowler crawled back into the game.”
Guerrera finished with a team-high 16 points, Lannis Dodge added eight points and Quinlan netted six points.
Jaquan Harris posted a game-high 20 points for Fowler.