A fantastic season was in danger of slipping away for the Albany High School boys’ basketball team with 1:41 left to play in the first round of the Section 2 Class AA playoffs Tuesday night. Guilderland had just erased all of the Falcons’ six-point lead, and stolen all the momentum, in a hard-fought game that had been close throughout.
That’s when Isaiah Austin took matters into his own hands.
Austin scored the last eight points of the game – sandwiching a gutsy 12-foot runner (pictured) between a pair of 3-pointers from the right wing – and Albany High got the big defensive stops when it needed them to pull out a 59-51 victory over the scrappy Dutchmen.
A senior playing at Albany High for the last time in his outstanding career, Austin matched his season scoring average with 23 points and added five steals to lead the fifth-seeded Falcons (15-6) into the Class AA quarterfinals. They will play No. 4 Shenendehowa (14-3) on Saturday at Hudson Valley Community College. Game time is 1:30 p.m.
Malachi Perry added 14 points for the Falcons in Tuesday’s win, and Deavion Springsteen contributed nine points and a game-high four assists.
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