Thursday, October 1, 2026
His last name might say otherwise, but junior Noah Shy was nothing but cool, calm and collected down the stretch of arguably Valley Stream North’s biggest boys’ basketball game of all-time before an overflow playoff-opening crowd at home last Saturday.
Shy drained three-pointers on each of the last two possessions, including the tiebreaking shot with 3.1 seconds remaining to give the third-seeded Spartans an exhilarating 60-57 first-round victory over rival Valley Stream South, the No. 14 seed and two-time defending Nassau Class A champions.
“It was a crazy game and we really battled,” said Shy, who scored 15 of his team-high 19 points in the second half. “I wasn’t hitting early, but coach [Dan Achatz] encouraged me to keep shooting and ran a play for me at the end. I just had to block out all the noise and make it.”
Shy’s winning basket marked the 16th lead change of the game and punched North’s ticket to Thursday’s quarterfinals at home against sixth-seeded Garden City at 7 p.m. Senior Joshua Dennis (13), sophomore Taliq Abdul-Rahim (13) and senior Jordan James (12) also scored in double figures for the Spartans, who defeated the Falcons twice during the regular season on the way to capturing the Conference A-III title.
“North versus South is always a great game,” Achatz said. “Hats off to all the kids on both teams. We knew how difficult beating them a third time was going to be, but we were tough and resilient.
“We’re going to keep grinding and see how far we go,” Achatz said. “It’s been an amazing season.”
South, which won an outbracket playoff matchup with Floral Park, 61-54, in a rematch of last year’s county final, trailed the Spartans (16-3) by six points late in each of the first two quarters and by five with 1:43 remaining in the third. Senior Hall Elisias led the way for the Falcons (12-9) with 20 points, including an emphatic two-handed dunk to open the second half, and 22 rebounds.
“Hall finished his career with a tremendous game,” South head coach Matt Johnsen said. “He’s always been able to flip a switch come playoff time.
“We’ve played really well as a team since North beat us the second time,” he added. “We gave them a run today and left everything on the court. We got contributions from everyone.”
Senior Carlos Harrypaul was in line to be the hero before Shy’s game-tying trey with 1:02 left and subsequent winner. Harrypaul scored seven of his nine points in the fourth quarter, including the go-ahead trey with 1:30 to go. Seniors Jaremi Hernandez and Dion Oguande, and junior Daniel Sarpong had eight points apiece for South, which missed eight of 15 free throw attempts.
The game was knotted at 16 after the first quarter, deadlocked at 30 at intermission, and North led by one heading into the fourth.
“It could’ve gone either way,” Achatz said. “We just happened to hit one more big shot than they did.”
