Upstart Carey in playoff contention

As trap games go, it seemed at the time a standard enough story line: Hard-luck Carey girls’ basketball team stuns visiting, first-place Calhoun in a late-season 69-60 league ambush.

For the then-Nassau Conference A2-leading Colts, the Jan. 22 upset meant only that they’d dropped into a first-place tie with Garden City; and for those following Carey, the spirited win, however uplifting, looked to be little more than a moral victory – an eloquent epitaph, perhaps, to a season all but dashed by COVID.

But as the league has since learned, the Seahawks live.  

And so, remarkably, do their postseason hopes, as fourth-place Carey (7-10, 5-6 A2) heads into its last two, likely must-win, regular-season games riding a season-high four-game win streak – which started with its signature win over now-second-place Calhoun.

“It’s been a weird year,” said Carey head coach Anthony Turco, whose club recently returned to full strength after a weekslong stretch in which as many as six Seahawks players sat out at once due to COVID-19 protocols. “It’s hard to get a flow with kids in quarantine for 10 days, but we finally started coming together. In [the Calhoun] game, we knew they might be looking past us. They ended up playing tough, but we matched them, played a complete game for four quarters. That’s something we hadn’t done in a while.”

All-County point guard Caylee DeMeo’s performance was not so irregular – just a little a gaudier than usual, as the Carey junior dropped a season-high 35 points on Calhoun, leading all scorers in the Seahawks victory. DeMeo, for a second straight season, is the league’s leading scorer (22.0 points per game) and ranks eighth in Nassau, while averaging 29.5 points across Carey’s ongoing winning streak.

“Caylee’s shown a lot of pride,” said Turco, whose club travels to fifth-place Roslyn (7-10, 4-6 A2) Feb. 8 and hosts first-place Garden City (13-4, 10-1 A2) in the teams’ regular-season finale Feb. 11. “Throughout everything, she’s just refused to let us become door mats. That’s made everyone around her better. A lot of our girls have been stepping up.”

One such girl is Carey freshman Liela Paz, second on the Seahawks with 10.6 ppg. A 16-point night in a win at Plainview-JFK marked Paz’s permanent exodus from Carey’s bench on Dec. 11. “It was only a matter of time before Liela became a major contributor,” said Turco. “She’s worked to become a team player. She and Caylee have worked hard at getting everyone better on the court.”

Paz’s 13 3-pointers rank third on the Seahawks, behind junior Kate Marcino’s 17 and DeMeo’s 32. Marcino, a first year-starting forward, has averaged 7.4 ppg in partial action, just ahead of junior guard and Carey co-captain Rose Castronovo’s 6.3 ppg.

“When we step on the court now, we know something can happen,” said Turco, whose team with two closing wins – or two Roslyn losses – would clinch its first playoff berth since 2014-15. “We know we’ve got to win out to get in. It’s been a fun run. Hopefully we keep going.”