By TONY BELLISSIMO
On Monday afternoon, the Lady Marines scored the game¹s final 13 points to pick up their first conference victory of the season, 49-41, after six losses. Freshman Natasia Hurd, who had all five of her points once the game was resumed, sparked the rally with a pair of free throws. Senior Katie O¹Toole (12 points) went 5-for-6 from the foul line in the final 1:21 to help seal the deal.
The Lady Jets, now 0-8 in conference games and 0-12 overall, were led by junior Nikki Green¹s nine points and Katlyn Carlin¹s 12 rebounds. Carlin (six points), Tara Werner (seven) and Krissy Curry (six) keyed an early fourth-quarter surge that put the hosts in front by a 41-36 margin with 3:02 remaining.
³The girls play their hearts out every game,² East Meadow¹s first-year coach Lisa Musgrove said. ³I would have loved to see us get this one. We had the momentum for a stretch but they came back and hit all of their free throws late.²
Back on Jan. 5, with 1:26 gone in the second half, East Meadow trimmed Long Beach¹s five-point halftime lead to 25-24. That¹s when an injury to Lady Jets¹ senior Tatiana Ritter forced the temporary end of the game. Ritter banged her head on the floor and suffered a concussion that would sideline her the rest of the season.
³We created more turnovers than any other game this season, but we just didn¹t convert too many of them into points,² LB Coach Lori DeVivio said. ³It was good to see us battle back. For a while, it didn¹t look like it was going to go our way.²
Though time to get into the win column is running out fast for East Meadow, Musgrove said her team has made strides since November and is making the best of it. ³As a whole, we¹ve enjoyed the last two weeks,² she said.
The Lady Jets played well in spurts in last week¹s 66-45 loss to MacArthur. Carlin had 12 points and Werner added 10. ³The score wasn¹t indicative of how we played,² Musgrove said.
After the loss to Long Beach, they had four more opponents on the schedule: Mepham, Plainview-JFK and Valley Stream Central and Farmingdale.
