PORT JERVIS – The Monticello Panthers came into Friday night’s contest with a chip on their shoulders after the previous home loss to the raiders ending at 47-40, and knew they needed this one if they were going to move up from the 8th seed to the 6th in the sectional rankings.

The Panthers would pull off a stunning comeback with their fourth quarter heroics to win 35-32 over the Raiders.

The contest started off slow as both teams locked in defensively. Half court sets and a lot of trapping from both teams kept a low score, with a first quarter total of just 12-7.

Things started to pick up in the second with  back-to-back buckets from the Raiders inside. Those were immediately answered by a 3 on the other end by the Panthers with more than half the quarter remaining and the panthers up 15-13. 

After a timeout from the raiders and the energy erupting from the home crowd, the raiders ended the remaining three minutes with  a 7-1 run to go into the half up 20-16 and looking to be in complete control of the game. 

Coming out of the break it was clear Port was locked in and focused on attacking the paint in efforts to get easy buckets, but the Panthers came out the break with the perfect counter plan, clogging the paint and attacking the boards hard. 

Senior big Dylan Hardy was all over the boards up to this point, and tallied 10 rebounds in the third quarter alone for the visiting Panthers, who were battling back but trailed by five, ending the third with a huge 3-pointer by their very own number 5, Joseph Russo.

With the momentum still in the Raiders favor, and the Panthers fighting back like numerous times this season, people were already writing the game off. Especially after a huge dagger from deep by Jacob Baumos that led to a timeout from the Panthers, but the game was far from over. 

After the timeout, the Panthers came out on all cylinders and ended the game on a 11-3 run in the fourth quarter to steal the biggest game of their season and moving up from the 8th seed to the 6-seed. Monticello ended their regular season with a record of 11-9 after starting off 3-6 to finish on an 8-3 run for the 35-32 win.

Monticello’s offense was paced by Joseph Russo with nine, and complemented by Xavean Mitchell and Dylan Hardy who each added 8.