NORWICH – They had the shirts made up a few weeks ago, before the conference tournament.
“Forty-nine point two – that’s our motto,” Cheney Tech senior Da’mnic Gittens said. “We’re 49.2 miles away from the Mohegan Sun.”
That was the goal from the start. They wore the shirts with 49.2 printed on them. Never mind that a technical school hadn’t advanced to a boys basketball state championship since Prince Tech last went in 2010. Before that, it was 1998.
To be fair, there are five divisions now, but Cheney Tech still had to get through the Division IV bracket. Cromwell, last year’s champion, was in there. Morgan, who handed Cromwell one of its two regular season losses, was the top seed.
Cheney Tech was No. 4. The Chargers beat Whitney Tech in the first round, Wamogo handily in the second and then had a tough overtime win over Ellington, last year’s Div. IV runner-up, a team with whom Cheney had played a close game at the end of the regular season.
Next up was the semifinal Tuesday night against Wheeler in front of a raucous crowd at NFA. Cheney Tech last made it to a semifinal in 2003. The farthest coach Ismael Caro ever made it as a player at Cheney was the quarters.
And behind 25 points from senior Da’mnic Gittens, Cheney Tech (24-3) made history, beating Wheeler, 60-43.
“We started talking about how far it is to go to the casino from the school (in Manchester) because that’s the goal and it just happened to be 49.2 miles,” Caro said. “That was one of our goals from the beginning of the year and we took it seriously and we thought we had a shot at getting there.
“Now we’re there.”
The Chargers will face Innovation, an 83-59 winner over Weaver Tuesday, in the Division IV championship game either Saturday or Sunday at a time to be determined at Mohegan Sun.
“It feels amazing,” Gittens said. “I wouldn’t have thought in my four years I would be in the championship game my senior year. It’s just amazing. All glory to God. Just happy to be with this team.”
Caro had a good feeling about this team at the start of the year even though he only had one senior. That would be Gittens, a 6-foot-4 point guard who broke Caro’s single game and school scoring records this season.
“I thought with this team we had all the parts and all the pieces,” Caro said. “I knew this team enjoyed playing with each other. When you have the kids and the cohesiveness, it makes your life easy.”
Even in the second half Tuesday night, when shots weren’t falling for Cheney Tech and the Chargers were turning over the ball, Caro wasn’t worried.
“It helps when you have the best player on the floor, it really does,” Caro said. “He came up big in key moments and he gave us that little extra push we needed.”
Gittens had eight of Cheney’s first 10 points and quickly the Chargers took a 10-2 lead that went to 12-2 and 14-2. Wheeler worked its way back into the game but Cheney junior Ayden Brookins (who had 13 points) hit three straight 3-pointers and Cheney led 35-18 at halftime.
Wheeler turned up its defensive intensity in the second half and it wasn’t easy for Cheney to score but the Chargers held a solid lead throughout.
“Forty-nine point two,” Brookins said. “We came into the season saying we was going to do it and we did it. We have one more game.”
