Local team turns heads in national tournament

One might have thought that the girls on Baldwin High School’s varsity basketball team had their fill of winning after capturing the Long Island championship in March, but that’s not the case.

Many girls on the squad play year-round on other teams, including three middle school students, Aziah Hudson, Kaia Harrison and Jenna Annecchiarico, who play on an Amateur Athletic Union (AAU) team that’s led by varsity coach Tom Catapano.

The under-13 team, made up of eight girls from across Long Island, has been playing together for the last three years and has tasted success. The team, called Epiphany Prince Elite, traveled to Virginia to compete in a national, invitational tournament in April.

Teams from far and wide attended the tournament, 32 of which were in the under-13 division. Despite facing tough competition throughout, Epiphany Prince Elite went 6-0 to take home the championship. They never faced a deficit in the six games.

“These kids worked tremendously hard,” Catapano said. “It’s nice when that hard work pays off.”

The team beat the Georgia Pistols, a well-known AAU program, in the championship game, 82-70. Annecchiarico, a 13-year-old eighth grader, said the tournament was a good experience for her, but one of the key factors in Epiphany Prince Elite’s win wasn’t the girls’ skill, although it helped, it was the team’s chemistry.

The three Baldwin girls have known each other for years and live in the same area. They often play basketball at each other’s homes or go to a local park to shoot hoops.

“I’m really happy that we won because we worked really hard for it,” Harrison, 12, a seventh grader said. “We’ve been playing together for a long time. There’s a lot of chemistry on the team.”

Hudson, a 13-year-old eighth grader, said despite her team’s impressive wins, nothing came easy. “It was very exiting,” she said. “There was a lot of competition. We had to work hard.”

One of the reasons Catapano accepted the invitation for his team to play in the tournament was to allow big-time college programs to get a look at the girls’ talent. The invitational, which featured several tournaments for various age groups, gave collegiate scouts a chance to see the best high school and middle school talent from around the country.