Staff photo / Brian Yauger Kennedy senior Quinn Meola goes for a layup during the third quarter of Friday's game against Heartland Christian. Meola scored six in the district championship.

ORWELL — In each of the last two years, this game has eluded them. Two bad nights at the worst possible time.

With four of Kennedy’s five starters being seniors, they had no intention of a third bad night.

The Eagles blew the doors off on Friday, taking down Heartland Christian 76-39 to win the program’s first district crown since 2021.

“They were hungry,” Kennedy coach Mark Komlanc said. “They learned from the last two years that they can’t let off the gas and they need to match intensities. Heartland probably plays harder than any team we’ve played all year. We told them the two things that we couldn’t do tonight. We couldn’t get out-worked, and we couldn’t allow open shots. And I felt like those are two things (we did well.) We matched their intensity, and we didn’t give too many openings. And if we did that, we thought it would be fine.

“They’ve been playing for four years (in high school). They’ve been playing together since fifth grade. I feel like all eight of our guys that weigh in our rotation played great today. Great intensity and it’s really hard to beat us when we’re playing like that.”

Michael Condoleon, who recorded the final out of Kennedy’s historic state title run in baseball as a freshman, had a monster first half, matching Heartland’s 20-point effort with one of his own.

Over its tournament run, Heartland Christian has excelled at limiting its opposition’s star player. The issue for the Lions is that Kennedy is a Hydra. It’s not just Condoleon (game-high 22 points) that can bury you.

If you shut Condoleon down, Nick Ryan (20 points) could be the one that has a night. If not him, Nico Ciminero or Jaden Rishel can be the guy.

Sometimes, it’s even one of the team’s unsung heroes.

“We’re not a one-trick pony. You can’t try and box-and-one on us or just deny one guy, because if you do that, we’re taking advantage of it, which is nice. That’s how we’ve designed the program. We expect to have four or five scores on the floor at all times and I felt like tonight they tried to sag off of Quinn (Meola) and Quinn made them pay. He doesn’t get a lot of press, he doesn’t score a ton of points, but he does all the dirty work and tonight he took care of business. He saw that they were sagging off of him and he made some big buckets in the third quarter that really started our run.”

Heartland Christian’s Cinderella run to the district final concludes with a 16-10 mark. Kennedy’s size just proved to be too much in the end.

“It’s just experience,” Lions coach Josh Scott said of the difference between Kennedy and the other teams they’ve faced in the tournament. “These guys have the size, have the expectation, you can see it in their play, and how they play. They’ve been here before. Not that those other guys haven’t, but these guys just knew how to make the plays. The other thing is they’re bigger, faster, stronger than us. … Our kids were learning as they went.

“Obviously, we needed to learn to adjust, but in an experience like this playing multiple guys in that moment, they’re going to have this to fall back on next year when times get tough again.”

After winning a trophy that’s eluded them the last two seasons, the Eagles (19-6) now are set to face the team that ended their run last season. Last year, Kennedy and Dalton shared a district, but this time they’ll face off at regionals.

While Dalton graduated a lot of talent from last season’s roster, they’ve reloaded. Losing zero players to graduation from last season’s roster, Kennedy has refined.

“We’re excited. (The kids) know that last year, we had one bad quarter and it set us back and they want to redeem themselves,” Komlanc said. “But we’re just going to approach it like we did this game. No worries, play hard, play our style, and let the chips fall where they may.”

Start time is set for 8 p.m. at the Canton Memorial Fieldhouse.

Have an interesting story? Contact Brian Yauger by email at byauger@tribtoday.com. Follow him on X, formerly Twitter, @_brianyauger.