Elmont tops Mepham for fourth straight

Mepham’s Kristen O’Brien joined the prestigious 1,000-point club last Thursday night with a second-quarter basket, but visiting Elmont had three players in double figures and joined the Lady Pirates in second place in Nassau Conference AA-III with a 48-32 victory.

Brea Fisher had 17 points and 11 rebounds, Goldie Harrison added 14 points, and Beatrice Pierre contributed 12 points and 12 rebounds to lead the Lady Spartans (4-2) to their fourth consecutive win. The senior trio combined to go 14-for-18 from the foul line, while freshman Megan Anderson paced Mepham (4-2) with 10 points.

“We’ve improved game by game, and this was probably our best performance of the season,” Elmont coach Tom Magno said. “When we got off to a slow start, we talked about not letting it get us down and staying positive. Now we’ll probably talk about not getting too excited and just keep doing what we’re doing.”

Most of the excitement for Mepham came at the 5:23 mark of the second quarter when O’Brien, a five-year varsity player bound for Adelphi University who entered the game with 996 career points, drilled a 12-foot jumper to put her over the coveted 1,000 mark. She hit a three-pointer in the first quarter to get within one of the plateau.

“Getting to 1,000 points makes me think about all the hard work I’ve put in for five years,” said O’Brien, who continues to recover from offseason knee surgery and is averaging 10 points per game. “I’ve had a lot of great teammates over the years,” she added. “This team is young, but we have a ton of potential.”

The Lady Pirates led 12-11 after O’Brien’s milestone basket but faced a 24-19 deficit at halftime and got no closer than four in the second half.

“It was a special night for Kristen,” Mepham coach Jim Mulvey said. “She’s always been a great team player. A thousand points is quite an accomplishment and something that’s been done only once before — Jen Geiger in 2000 — in school history. We would’ve liked the win to go along with it, but we didn’t shoot or rebound well and they were more aggressive.”

Both teams shot well from behind the arc in the first half, combining for seven three-pointers including one apiece by Fisher, Harrison, and Pierre, and a pair by Anderson. Harrison (five) and Fisher then combined for eight of the first 11 points of the second half as Elmont built an 11-point cushion.

“We had to get away from the zone a little because they were hurting us from the outside,” Mulvey said. “Once we did that, Fisher got more opportunities and took advantage.”

Baskets by O’Brien (seven points) and juniors Mary Galgano and Nicole Castaldo brought Mepham within 32-28 by the end of the third quarter, but the Lady Spartans scored 10 of the next 12 points to pull away.

Both teams open the second half of the Conference AA-III schedule this Friday. Mepham travels to Long Beach, while Elmont goes to undefeated Herricks.