To paraphrase Bill Thom, the other teams aren’t stupid. They watched the early games of the tournament and realized P.J. Torres was the Hudson Valley player to stop. Western locked down on Torres and took Hudson Valley out of its rhythm, pulling ahead 49-44 at the half.

But with Torres easing into his role as a facilitator, Kennedy’s Frankie Kelly simply went off. He scored 18 of his team-high 23 points and made three 3-pointers in the second half and Hudson Valley earned a must-win 99-92.

“He was unbelievable,” said Thom, the Hudson Valley/Croton-Harmon coach.

Hudson Valley earned its first shot at gold since 2007. It will meet Central tomorrow at 12 p.m. at Canisius aiming for the region’s first scholastic men’s basketball gold since 2005.

Torres finished with 16 points of his own. Shane Carter of Peekskill played well again, scoring 13 points, many of them clutch. Mike McCahey of Clarkstown South and Austin Taps of Stepinac/Mahopac each added 11.

Both Hudson Valley and Central finished the round-robin portion of the tournament 3-0. Had Hudson Valley lost, Western would have advanced on the head-to-head tiebreaker.

Here’s the complete breakdown of the scoring…

Hudson Valley (3-0) … 44 55 — 99
Western (1-2) … 49 43 — 92
Hudson Valley: Frankie Kelly (Kennedy) 23, P.J. Torres (New Rochelle) 16, Mike McCahey (Clarkstown South) 11, Austin Taps (Mahopac/Stepinac) 11, Shane Carter (Peekskill) 13, Craig Dorn (New Rochelle), Dan Healy (Kennedy) 7, Chris Michella (Valley Central) 6, Tyler Sayre (Albertus Magnus) 5, Conor Smith (Rye) 1.