Friday night, the two teams met on Fredonia’s Senior Night.

Fredonia wasn’t going to wait all that time just to send its seniors off with a sour taste.

The Hillbillies took care of business in front of a Valentine’s Day crowd to celebrate its seniors in style with a 53-40 victory over Allegany-Limestone in a Chautauqua-Cattaraugus Athletic Association Division 1 boys basketball game at Fredonia High School.

Fredonia senior point guard Luca Gullo was not afraid to say that there was added motivation to take care of business against the team that postponed several trips to Fredonia earlier this year, and even earlier this week.

OBSERVER Photo by Ashleigh Brown Fredonia’s Malachi Hall attempts to drive by Allegany-Limestone’s Brady Straub during Friday night’s CCAA Division 1 boys basketball game at Fredonia High School.

“That made it personal, for sure. Every single time it got canceled, we were saying they don’t want to play us,” Gullo said. “We were ready for them. They were ready for us — that’s a great Allegany team — but we took it personally. We played angry tonight and it really worked for us.”

Over the first three minutes of Friday’s game, Allegany-Limestone (10-8, 6-6) had a six-point lead as Fredonia (10-9, 5-6) failed to score.

Fredonia made a run of seven straight points to take the lead, punctuated by a corner 3-pointer by R.J. Koopman with 53 seconds remaining in the opening quarter. After the Gators answered, Gullo responded with a floater to claim the lead after a low-scoring first quarter, 9-8.

As poorly as Fredonia started the first quarter, it was a polar opposite in the second quarter. The Hillbillies scored seven points in the first two minutes of play. Over the first 3:16 of the second period of play, Fredonia outscored Allegany-Limestone 13-2, with four different players scoring in the stretch. Senior Malachi Hall made a layup to start the run, which was followed by a Koopman 3-pointer.

“We really made an emphasis tonight that we’re going to have to play darn near perfect without one of our best athletes, scorers and leaders on the team,” said Fredonia head coach Nick Bertrando.

Message received.

In all, from near the midpoint of the first quarter to near the midpoint of the second quarter, Fredonia had three stretches of at least six consecutive points in an eight-minute window. Those mini runs combined to turn a 6-0 deficit into a 22-10 lead with 4:44 left in the first half.

From that point on, Fredonia’s defense locked in. At no point from that moment on did Fredonia’s lead ever fall below six points.

Fredonia knew Allegany-Limestone had an elite scorer on its side in Carson Kwiatkowski. Friday did nothing to change their mind’s of that. Gullo called Kwiatkowski “one of the best players in Western New York.”

Still, it was the defensive effort as a team that set Fredonia up for success on Friday. While Kwiatkowski had 25 points, the rest of his team only had 15 points total — 9 from Gavin Straub and 6 from Caleb Strade.

“We all buy in. We know defense is the key to winning,” Gullo said. “We can make all the shots we want, but it all comes back to defense.”

Fredonia entered Friday’s game following a tough loss at home to Southwestern on Monday. In that game, Ashton Putney, Fredonia’s longest tenured player, suffered an injury. He could not get cleared to play in Friday’s game, making it the first game in three years that he missed due to injury.

“Ashton has been a staple of our program and I felt bad that he wasn’t able to play tonight, especially on Senior Night,” Bertrando said.

In his previous 67 games with the team, Putney hit 133 shots from beyond the arc, with at least one 3-pointer in 50 of the 67 games. Fredonia had a 43-24 record in those contests.

“Ashton has such a big impact on the team. He’s a great scorer and we knew he was going, coming into the game. He told us we had to step up, but there was no added pressure because we knew we’ve got the guys to handle it,” Gullo said.

Gullo was right.

“Luca has been one of our best leaders, not only as a senior, but all these years he’s been part of the program,” Bertrando said. “Obviously with (Putney) out, it was on full display. He basically runs the show. As he goes, we go.”

With Putney’s absence, while the team only had 10 points combined from seniors on Friday, 8 of those points came from Gullo. He also had six assists.

Instead, it was the juniors that stepped up for the Hillbillies. Colin Luce led Fredonia with 16 points, including 7 for 11 from the field. R.J. Koopman had 15 points and tied Gullo for a team-high six assists. Donovan Dowdy also played well for Fredonia with 9 points, four rebounds and two assists.

“The way the rest of these guys really rallied when they found out Ashton wasn’t going to be able to play tonight. Everybody looked at each other and knew this is what we’ve been preparing for,” Bertrando said. “… I was really proud that we were able to weather the storm against a really good basketball team and come out of here with a victory.”

Moving forward, Allegany-Limestone has two nonleague games remaining before the sectional playoffs: Tuesday against Holland and Thursday against Randolph.

Fredonia’s regular season concludes Tuesday with a road matchup against Southwestern. Friday’s win likely clinched a home playoff game for Fredonia once the sectional playoffs in Class B1 begin.

Fredonia celebrated three seniors before Friday’s game: Putney, Gullo and Hall. After the game, Bertrando spoke to the impact they all had on the program.

“I appreciate all the time these guys have spent in the program. To see them go out with their last regular season home game as a win, it’s always nice to see,” Bertrando said. “When you spend this much time with these guys over the years … it comes full circle. I don’t think they realize it at the time how quick it goes, but you learn to cherish each and every single moment. In my position, I’m lucky because I get to do it every year.”

Regardless of what comes next, Gullo was happy to end the regular season home slate with a win.

“I just wanted to go out on a great note. I told my guys to leave it all on the court like there’s no tomorrow,” Gullo said. “… I love playing on this court, I love the fans and I hope I can say I gave them all I had. This was a fun night.”

ALLEGANY-LIMESTONE (40)

Wilczewski 0 0 0, Callen 0 0 0, BStraub 0 0 0, Amore 0 0 0, Kwiatkowski 8 7 25, GStraub 3 3 9, Misener 0 0 0, Strade 2 1 6. Totals 13 11 40.

FREDONIA (53)

Luce 7 2 16, Dowdy 4 0 9, Gullo 3 1 8, GPutney 0 0 0, Koopman 5 2 15, Lincoln 1 1 3, Hall 1 0 2. Totals 21 6 53.

3-point goals–Kwiatkowski 2, Strade, Dowdy, Gullo, Koopman 3.

Allegany-Limestone 8 8 10 14 — 40

Fredonia 9 14 17 13 — 53