Baldwin stockpiling big wins

Baldwin has cleared the halfway point of the Conference AA-II girls’ basketball schedule with barely a bump in the road, winning its last five games by an average of 36 points.

The Lady Bruins’ (8-2 overall, 7-0 in Conference AA-II) only two defeats came in a 57-53 decision to Francis Lewis from Fresh Meadows on Dec. 29, and a two-point nailbiter to North Babylon from Suffolk County one day earlier.

“We had 11 girls returning with experience under their belt this year,” Baldwin head coach Tom Catapano said of the primary reason for the season-long hot streak. “We had a bunch of starters back and the newcomers worked extremely hard.”

Defense has always been the key for Baldwin under Catapano, and the frenetic pace the team pushes with traps and presses continues to be a major problem that opponents have been unable to solve. But there’s a new wrinkle for a program that normally uses defense to create offense. “For us defense is always the No. 1 priority,” Catapano said. “But this team is the most offensively balanced and skilled in my five years. We’ve been scoring points.”

Despite not having a single player top 20 points in any game, the Lady Bruins are driven by a deep group of scorers who have pushed the team to at least 62 points four of the last five games. In the most recent win, a 63-16 decision over Plainview JFK last Friday, three players — senior Mariah Butler, junior Tiara Place and eighth-grader Aziah Hudson — each scored 11 points, while senior Tyra Harrison chipped in with nine. In a 62-32 win over MacArthur on Jan. 14, three players topped double figures, led by sophomore Lames El Gammal, who had a double-double with 15 points and 10 rebounds. El Gammal had 18 points and 19 rebounds in the loss to North Babylon, while Place, who plays as a stretch four, creates mismatch problems with her athleticism. She had 14 points and 10 boards in a 54-24 win over Harry Truman (Bronx) on Jan. 10.

“We have Tiara [Place] and Lames [El Gammal] down low and getting easy baskets,” Catapano said, noting that El Gammal missed almost all of last season due to injury. “Having her back helps tremendously. She can score with both her right and left hand and is a tremendous rebounder. [Tiara] is too big for smaller players and too quick for the bigger [defenders].”

The defense, which has allowed more than nine points in just two of the last 16 quarters, has a number of standouts, including Butler, also the team’s leading scorer, and a third-year varsity starter, and junior Jewell Harvey, who normally draws the assignment of covering an opponent’s top guard. “She’s tenacious and relentless and plays at 110 percent all the time,” Catapano said.

Baldwin’s deep roster has also afforded Catapano the luxury of giving every player on the roster minutes in eight of the 10 games so far. “We try and press full court and capitalize on easy baskets as a result of the defense,” he said. “We’re very deep, playing nine or 10 [in every game], so I think we’re wearing teams down.”