Baldwin edges Uniondale in championship thriller

As if Baldwin wasn’t hungry enough to knock longtime rival and two-time defending Nassau Class AA champion Uniondale from the top of the boys’ basketball mountain, watching the Baldwin girls claim their seventh straight county title before the Bruins took the court for warmups Sunday night only added fuel to their fire, senior Kamani Jones said.

Then, in what was a classic Baldwin-Uniondale slugfest before a packed crowd of more than 3,000 at Nassau Coliseum, the Bruins’ defense withstood multiple chances by the top-seeded Knights in the final 10 seconds to secure an emotional 61-60 victory.

“I went to a bunch of Baldwin-Uniondale games when I was younger and got to play against Uniondale in the finals two years ago as a sophomore when we lost,” said Baldwin senior Jayden McKenzie, who led all scorers with 22 points. “This was a crazy finish and it feels great to be holding this plaque,” he added. “Us and the girls had unbelievable crowd support tonight and it’s incredible that we both won.”

McKenzie was Baldwin’s lone double-digit scorer, but its contributions ran deep. Jones had nine points, Isiah Walker added eight, Trevan Blackett and Lance Henry chipped in seven apiece, and Jeff Douby and Tre Parkin both had four.

“Our guys have a refuse to lose attitude,” Baldwin head coach Darius Burton said. “We’ve been a strong third-quarter team all season and tonight was no different. We were down by five at halftime and fought back to tie it going into the fourth. Once that happened I figured it would probably come down to the last possession.”

It did. The Knights grabbed a defensive rebound with 18 seconds left in regulation and attempted a couple of shots in the waning moments before the ball rolled out of bounds with 0.3 seconds remaining. A desperation tap-in try sailed well wide of the rim as the horn sounded. “We just put our biggest kid [the 6-foot-7 Douby] on the baseline and told everyone not to foul,” Burton said. “Their only chance was a tap and we didn’t give them a good look.”

A wild celebration followed as the second-seeded Bruins (18-3) punched their ticket to the Long Island Class AA championship game where they’ll host Brentwood this Sunday at 4 p.m. with limited attendance. Senior Jayden Freeman and freshman Jo-Jo Wright led Uniondale, which had won 19 in a row, with 14 points apiece.

“The girls winning definitely gave us extra motivation,” said Jones, who sank a pressure three-pointer with just over two minutes remaining to give the Bruins a 59-58 lead. “We both wanted to bring a championship back to town.”

Baldwin trailed for much of the first half and faced an uphill battle with a 31-26 deficit at halftime. Uniondale led by six late in the third quarter before an electric breakaway dunk by Blackett began the momentum swing. McKenzie scored the last six points of the third to tie it at 45.

“Trevan can be explosive like that and that dunk really fired everyone up,” Burton said.

The Bruins led 56-51 before Uniondale ran off seven straight points to take the lead. Jones’ trey and a backdoor layup by Blackett, off a nifty feed by Walker, provided all the offense Baldwin needed to hold on.

“We’ve been upstate in 2008, 2012 and 2016,” Burton noted. “We want to keep that every fourth year pattern going.”