GENEVA \u2014 Reaching the sectional championship game and capturing the Geneva boys basketball team\u2019s first sectional title since the 2020 postseason is what the Panthers are hoping to accomplish during this current 2026 postseason.<\/p>\n
For now, Geneva is headed back to the sectional semifinals for the second in year in a row.<\/p>\n
The No. 2-seeded Panthers received a tough test against No. 7 seed Honeoye Falls-Lima. However, Geneva led wire to wire to post a 55-43 victory in the Section V Class A quarterfinals on Friday night at Geneva High School.<\/p>\n
After taking a 6-0 lead right away, the Panthers doubled up the Cougars 16-8 by the end of the first quarter.<\/p>\n
Despite multiple double-digit deficits, Honeoye Falls-Lima (12-10) cut the deficit to single digits on multiple occasions.<\/p>\n
Senior Kaden Larsen-Porter scored a game-high 29 points while also hauling in 15 rebounds to help lift the Panthers to the quarterfinal victory.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey showed resilience,\u201d Geneva head coach Ed Collins said about his team. \u201cAt this time of year, records are wiped as far as we\u2019re concerned. Our kids talked about getting the first win all this week in practice. Everybody has been focused really well and I liked how they stayed together.\u201d<\/p>\n
Geneva (19-2) struggled in the third quarter, as they were held to just eight points during the period. The Cougars could not take advantage, as they outscored the Panthers only 9-8 during the third quarter.<\/p>\n
\u201cI thought we dropped off pretty bad,\u201d Collins said about his team during the third quarter. \u201cIntensity-wise, we went down; I\u2019ll take the blame for that. I should have come out and got us back in the press a little more to keep that energy level up.\u201d<\/p>\n
Honeoye Falls-Lima junior Grady Goodberlet led his team with 11 points, six of which came during the fourth quarter.<\/p>\n
The Cougars cut the Geneva lead to 48-43 with under 4 minutes left remaining in the game, but the Panthers scored the final seven points to seal the victory.<\/p>\n
Geneva sophomore Jahzire White drained two 3-pointers and finished with nine points, while fellow sophomore Jacob Irland added eight points, giving their Panthers their sixth victory in a row.<\/p>\n
Geneva has not captured a sectional championship since beating Finger Lakes East rival Waterloo in the 2020 Class B1 title game.<\/p>\n
The Panthers are looking to reach the sectional title game for the first time since then, but they have to get through No. 3 Wayne Central first.<\/p>\n
The two Finger Lakes East foes will meet Wednesday at Gates-Chili High School, with their semifinal matchup starting at 7:45 p.m.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019re a hell of a program,\u201d Collins said about Wayne and their head coach, Bill Thomson. \u201cPlayers graduate, people move on, but programs are programs and Billy\u2019s (Thomson) built one of the best program\u2019s in Section V, no matter what class it is. We\u2019re going to give it our best shot, and we\u2019re going to hopefully be in a dogfight, that\u2019s what we\u2019re looking for.\u201d<\/p>\n
This will be the third season in a row in which Geneva has matched up against Wayne in sectionals. The previous postseason meetings ended with Wayne victories<\/p>\n
Wayne is coming off a hard-fought, 64-56 victory over No. 6 Newark in the Class A quarterfinals on Friday evening in Ontario.<\/p>\n
During the regular season, the Panthers and Wayne split their two meetings, but it\u2019s a Wayne team that\u2019s won 15 matchups in a row since its 3-3 start to 2025-26 season.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"GENEVA \u2014 Reaching the sectional championship game and capturing the Geneva boys basketball team\u2019s first sectional title since…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":23110,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[4862,9879,14848,14850,65,14370,14846,14849,3569,14854,14853,14851,14852,14847,307,14855],"class_list":{"0":"post-23109","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-geneva","8":"tag-american-football","9":"tag-basketball","10":"tag-class-a-quarterfinals","11":"tag-ed-collins","12":"tag-geneva","13":"tag-geneva-panthers","14":"tag-high-school-boys-basketball","15":"tag-honeoye-falls-lima-central-cougars","16":"tag-men","17":"tag-pittsburgh-panthers","18":"tag-pittsburgh-panthers-football","19":"tag-pittsburgh-panthers-football-seasons","20":"tag-pittsburgh-panthers-seasons","21":"tag-section-v-boys-basketball","22":"tag-sports","23":"tag-sports-competitions"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23109","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23109"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23109\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23110"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23109"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23109"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ch\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23109"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}