By: TONY BELLISSIMO
Last week's Nassau County Class A girls basketball first-round playoff game between No. 10 South Side and seventh-seeded Valley Stream Central was delayed 35 minutes while some minor adjustments were made to the court.
But once the Cyclones and Eagles tipped off, they put on an exciting battle that came down to the closing minutes. Central, which trailed 17-14 after the first quarter, led by 19 points midway through the third and withstood a late South Side rally and held on to eliminate the visiting Cyclones, 63-58.
We fell asleep in the second quarter and we dug too big a hole, South Side coach Walter Denton said.
Four Cyclones scored in double figures, led by senior Kristen Giammarino's 13 points. Sophomores Katherine Stritzl, Candyce Payton and Christine Abrams had 12 apiece. Junior Vikki Rozakis added seven points. Central's Stacy Schultz led all scorers with 21 points.
South Side, which finished 7-5 in Conference III and 10-9 overall, could have easily called it quits after Stephanie Filiaut's jumper gave the Eagles a 47-28 advantage with 3:56 left in the third. But Abrams and Payton sparked a16-3 run that brought the Cyclones within 50-44 with 5:47 remaining.
They kept coming at us, Central coach Denise Schatz said. We met twice during the regular season and I think both teams expected a close game. Fortunately we held them off. It's a nice win for us.
Abrams, who scored all of her points in the second half, Payton and junior Bridget McDermott combined to score all of South Side's points in the third. Abrams had three driving layups, while Payton (twice) and McDermott hit from the outside to highlight a 12-0 spurt to close the quarter.
There's no question we were back in it at that point, said Denton, who used a pair of timeouts during the third quarter to regroup the troops. The girls really hung tough. They didn't want the season to end.
Schultz had a pair of clutch three-pointers in the fourth, and Central got the ball in the hands of point guard Kerri Kelty as much as possible in crunch time. Kelty's backcourt mate, Lisa Longo, went down early in the second half with a shoulder injury. Kelty finished with 10 points and five assists.
Kerri and Lisa work well together and it hurt us a little when Lisa had to come out, Schatz said.
Meghan Mannion and Filiaut hit big shots to give the Eagles a 60-50 lead with less than two minutes left. However, the Cyclones made one last surge. Two free throws and a three-pointer by Giammarino coupled with a trey from Payton made it 61-58 with 15 seconds to play. But Darlene Barone (13 points) and Schultz both hit the front end of one-and-one situations to seal the outcome.
Said Denton: We had an awful lot of young kids get a lot of game experience and I couldn't be more pleased with the season.
