ST. MARYS — It’s been five years since the Ridgway Elkers last won a District 9 title. 

Since then, they’ve built up one of the District’s fiercest rivalries with Coudy, flew through an undefeated 2018 regular season, and scored a couple of PIAA wins. 

But they hadn’t been back on top of the District. Until Thursday. 

In another classic and memorable tilt against the Coudersport Falcons, Ridgway enacted its revenge from last year’s title game loss with a back-and-forth 52-50 victory over its Class AA rival in the championship game in front of a to-capacity audience at St. Marys High School. 

After losing to Coudersport 66-46 last season, the Elkers (24-3) have won both of this year’s meetings — by a combined three points — to hand the Falcons (23-2) their only two losses of the year. 

“Everybody thought that last year’s team was the team, but we knew we had a pretty good team coming back from that,” Ridgway coach Tony Allegretto said. “We were 25-0 last year, but we lost this (title game last year) and got beat pretty bad by Coudy. These guys came back and they wanted it bad. 

“They worked hard and had probably their two best practices of the year the past two days. Everybody stepped up and made a play somewhere along the line.”

Trailing 43-37 heading into the fourth quarter, Ridgway clicked all of the right buttons on both sides of the ball to battle all the way back. 

With the game tied at 50 with a minute and change to play, Ridgway milked the clock to less than 10 seconds remaining before it finally ran a play. 

In point guard Daunte Allegretto’s hands, he fed a perfect bounce pass to teammate Zack Zameroski in the paint and past a Coudy defender to bank in an easy layup and put the Elkers back ahead. 

“We wanted to try to run the clock down a little bit. We knew sooner or later they would creep up a little bit and put pressure on you,” Allegretto said. “That was one of our game plans to break it down the middle and hit that bounce pass. We have been practicing all week and what a great time to do it. Zack got the ball fake and put it in.”

Ridgway had been in that position before. 

Coudersport held a 10-point halftime lead and was leading by four going into the fourth quarter during the regular season meeting, but weren’t able to hold the lead and the Elkers sank a couple of late free-throws to seal that win. 

“We’ve been resilient all season long,” Allegretto said. “We were down 12-0 up at Coudy and we won that game. Against Elk Catholic a couple weeks ago, we were down by 10 heading into the fourth quarter and we won. We just don’t give up. We stick with the system and make foul shots.” 

Down by just two after Zameroski’s shot, Coudy called a timeout and drew up a play of its own. The Falcons actually got two good shot opportunities from Travis Gleason at the 3-point line before the final horn hit, but they both fell short. 

“It was a great game, right?” Coudersport coach Brian Furman said. “Hurts to come off on the wrong end of it. We have built a little rivalry with Ridgway and I think this is what we expected. I think the game itself lived up to everything.”

Ridgway tried to play the game at its slow, meticulous pace from the opening tip. The Elkers entered the game allowing the fewest points in D-9 (36.7 ppg), while Coudy averaged the most scored (80.6). 

“That’s who they are,” Furman said. “We expected that, and we worked on that in practice. In a game against Ridgway, there are just going to be fewer possessions. We have to be more efficient because there are less possessions.”

And although the Elkers didn’t completely slow down Owen Chambers, they held him to 24 points and didn’t allow D-9’s best offensive player to dictate the game as he usually does. 

The Coudy senior, who is now just 45 points shy of breaking the all-time D-9 scoring record, did score 11 points in the third quarter to help the Falcons build their biggest lead of the game. 

But he made just one field goal — a 3-pointer — in the fourth quarter and was blanketed by Ridgway defenders during those final seconds before the buzzer. 

“Zack and Parker (Rohr) really did a great job on him,” Allegretto said. “They were on him most of the time, but everybody ended up on him on some point. I said before the game that if he got to 30 we were in trouble. If he was around 20, we would be OK.”

Hayden Keck and Travis Gleason had 10 points each for Coudy, but the Falcons fell nearly 30 points from their season average and could muster just seven points over the final eight minutes of the game. It was something Furman wasn’t shocked by after so many previous battles against Allegretto’s Elker defense. 

“Hats off to Ridgway,” he said. “They are a great defensive team and we knew we were going to have to earn every basket we got. We didn’t shoot the ball particularly well, but that’s because of their defense. We had a few too many turnovers and give them credit for their defense. Again, one more shot falls and maybe the outcome is different.”

Ridgway’s win guarantees them a higher seed in next week’s PIAA playoffs, meaning they will get the fourth-place finisher out of the WPIAL. Coudersport, meanwhile, will travel to play the third-place finisher from that league. 

AT ST. MARYS

Ridgway (52)

Daunte Allegretto 3 6-11 16, Parker Rohr 5 2-2 12, Dush 4 0-0 8, Thompson 2 0-0 4, Zameroski 4 1-2 9, Reynolds 2 0-0 5. Totals: 20 9-15 52

Coudersport (50)

Owen Chambers 9 3-3 24, Hayden Keck 5 0-0 10, Travis Gleason 4 2-2 10, Easton 2 0-0 6, Di. Keglovits 0 0-0 0. Totals: 20 5-5 50

Ridgway10  24  37  52

Coudersport  9   28  43  50

Three-point goals: Ridgway 2 (Allegretto, Reynolds), Coudy 5 (Chambers 3, Easton 2); Total fouls: Ridgway 13, Coudersport 15; fouled out: none