An epic basketball game for a district championship was sandwiched in between two local programs showing love and admiration for each other on Friday night. The game started with smiles and handshakes for both the Montabella and Carson City-Crystal boys basketball team Friday night at Ithaca it ended the same way. But at the start, those handshakes and smiles were going to be fleeting only one team would walk away happy with the hardware.
The Montabella boys basketball team entered Monday night’s regional semifinal with just two blemishes on their record and plenty of confidence after earning the program’s first district title in 16 years on Friday. A 15-point loss on the road on opening night to Lansing Catholic and a 3-point overtime loss to Watervilet, the No. 2-ranked team in the state at the time that’s it. A truly historic run that produced one of the area’s best boys basketball teams in half of a decade was hit with its third blemish on Monday night in a big way against Calvin Christian.