Sailors eliminated by Hicksville

   
Trailing visiting Hicksville by as many as 15 points in last Saturday’s Nassau Class AA boys’ basketball first-round playoff game, eight-seeded Oceanside stormed back and had the ball just where it wanted it needing a basket to force overtime—in the hands of point guard Gene Garay.
   
Garay was looking for Mike Bonomo, and the Comets were ready
for it.

   
As Bonomo cut across the lane, John Petrucelli intercepted Garay’s pass and sprung Uche Ogbonna for a breakaway layup that sealed No. 9 Hicksville’s 54-51 victory before a standing-room-only crowd. It advanced to face defending county champion Uniondale, the No. 1 seed, in the quarterfinals.
   
“It’s a tough loss to swallow,” Sailors coach Dan Keegan said. “I don’t think we can look back on one play and say it cost us the game. We had a pretty poor second quarter that forced us to play catch-up the rest of the way.”
   
Ogbonna ‘had 11 of his game-high 25 points in a second quarter that saw the Comets outscore the hosts by a 22-4 margin to lead by 14 at halftime. Petrucelli and Danny Nardiello added 11 points apiece, while Bonomo (16), Garay (13) and Danny Collins (11) scored in double figures for Oceanside, which won 13 of 17 games this season as well as its first conference championship since the 1991-92 campaign.
   
“We had a special season with a special group of guys,” Keegan said.
   
Bonomo, Garay and Collins all sank three-point shots in a first quarter that ended with the Sailors leading 13-9, but nothing went right for the hosts in the second. Ogbonna and Nardiello attacked the rim and combined for a half-dozen easy baskets. In the meantime, Oceanside went cold in the shooting and rebound departments and faced an uphill climb trailing 31-17 at intermission.
   
“We were bracing for them to make a run, if not two runs,” Hicksville coach Phil Essigman said. “I told our kids to treat the se‰cond half as if it was the start of a new game.”
   
Oceanside began to chip away after an Ogbonna dunk gave the Comets their biggest lead at 39-24 with 2:34 remaining in the third quarter. Garay, Bonomo and Collins each hit two free throws to cut the margin to nine entering the fourth.
   
Down six with 2:05 remaining in regulation, Bonomo drained a trey and Garay hit one of two free throws to make it a two-point game. Petrucelli scored the next three points to push the difference back to give, but another Bonomo trey made it 50-48 and the Sailors had a chance to tie after Petrucelli missed the front end of a one-and-one.
   
“They’re a strong team in transition,” Keegan said. “We didn’t want to go up and down the floor with them, but when you fall behind by 15 there’s no choice.
   
“We had a whole season where teams were trying to catch us,” he added. “Today we had to catch them, but we came up just short.”