Staff photo / Neel Madhavan Chaney’s Dewayne Thompson puts up a layup to finish a fast break past Hoban’s John Johnson during the first half of Friday’s Division III, Region 9 final at Medina.

MEDINA — One of the best seasons in the history of the Chaney boys basketball program came to a crushing halt on Friday night.

The Cowboys led Archbishop Hoban by seven with just under two minutes left. But the Knights rallied, scoring eight unanswered points over the final 1:46, which included the game-winning driving layup by Arri Caporaletti in the final seconds, to hand Chaney a heartbreaking 61-60 defeat in the Division III, Region 9 final at Medina.

“It’s really hard because this is our last year for Chaney. We wanted to at least make it to state,” head coach Marlon McGaughy said. “When you go to state, anything can happen, and we fell short of our goal.”

In its final season before merging with East next year to form Youngstown High School, the Cowboys finished as regional runner ups at 22-4.

Despite coming closer to the program’s first regional title and state final four appearance than any other team in school history, the Cowboys feel like they let one slip away.

“It’s a great (season), but it doesn’t feel that way honestly because we didn’t win this game,” junior guard Austin Brown said. “I feel like we could have won it. But on to next year.”

Hoban controlled the opening half with its outside shooting. The Knights hit six 3-pointers in the first half, which included four in the first quarter.

Despite getting 18 first-half points from star John Johnson, Hoban led by just two at halftime, 30-28, after Allen Hill hit a midrange baseline jumper at the buzzer.

Coming out of the locker room, Chaney started to find a rhythm, building off the momentum that it built to end the second quarter.

The Cowboys tied the game in the first couple minutes of the third quarter for the first time all night. Then Chaney took its first lead, 40-38, with 3:06 left in the period on a pair of free throws by Asuante Mickel.

By the end of the third quarter, the Cowboys had grown their lead to six, 48-42, after outscoring Hoban 20-12 during the quarter.

“We told them we gotta quit giving up so many threes and long rebounds,” McGaughy said. “We can beat them, we can beat any team as long as we rebound and don’t give up a lot of threes. Most of our games we lost this year, we lost because teams hit a lot of threes.”

As Chaney adjusted defensively, the Knights hit just one three in the second half. Plus, after Johnson’s scoring outburst in the first half, the Cowboys limited him to just eight points in the second half. Johnson finished with 26 points to lead the Knights.

“Every team makes adjustments,” McGaughy said. “We had to switch everything and just make sure he didn’t catch the ball.”

Chaney led by as many as nine in the fourth quarter, and even as Hoban ratcheted up its pressure defensively, the Cowboys still held a 60-53 lead with 1:46 left.

Still ahead by one with 28.9 seconds left, Chaney had the ball with a chance to go to the free-throw line. But a turnover and an offensive foul on an inbound gave the Knights the ball back with 16.8 seconds left.

Off the inbound out of a timeout, the Cowboys trapped Hoban’s Nico Caporaletti in the corner. But he drove and kicked the ball out to Arri Caporaletti at the top of the key. With Chaney’s defense out of position, he drove left and finished past a defender at the rim with about eight seconds left.

Chaney pushed up the floor, but Brown’s layup attempt was swatted away in heavy traffic down low as the final seconds ticked off the clock.

“I think we got out of character. We didn’t take care of the ball. We had too many turnovers, and we were in the penalty,” McGaughy said. “I tried to tell my team we gotta bring it up. Good teams bring the ball back out and they understand what’s going on. But we’re young, so we’ll get better.”

Allen Hill led the Cowboys with 16 points, while Brown finished with 14 and Mickel had 12.

The Cowboys graduate three seniors in Allen and Allex Hill and Dewayne Thompson, but players like Brown, Mickel, Keith Franklin and Jayden Mack are set to return next year as Defenders at Youngstown.

“We’re going to keep plugging away,” McGaughy said of the future. “We’re going to get back in the gym. We’ll give the players a couple weeks off, and we’ll get back in the gym.”