Girls basketball: Indians fall in county playoffs
The Indians knew they would have a tough game ahead of them in their Class B, C and D championship match on March 2. They were playing Center Moriches, a squad two classes higher and nearly undefeated in their league. Last year, Center Moriches won both the Class B, C and D championship and the Section XI small school championship.
The game was indeed a tough match, but not the blowout it could have been: the Red Devils took the win, 51-31. The loss knocked the Indians out of the Suffolk County Section XI playoffs after having gone further in the tournament than ever before.
Center Moriches went on to defeat Elwood John/Glenn to win the Section XI small school title on March 4 and then beat Class AA Deer Park to win the Section XI championship. They will play Cold Spring Harbor tomorrow to vie for the Long Island championship.
“The girls played as hard as they could, and to keep it respectable, that’s all we could ask for,” said Indians Coach Peter Miedema of the March 2 defeat.
The girls had a tough time keeping up in the first half, allowing their Center Moriches opponents to build a 25-10 lead by halftime. “We were exposed to a different caliber of team,” said Mr. Miedema. “This team was just bigger, faster, stronger. It wasn’t just one thing that they excelled at, they were pretty well structured all the way around.”
Shelter Island was playing their standard 2-3 and 3-2 zone defense since “overall we couldn’t have kept up with them playing a man defense,” Coach Miedema explained. “They were just too fast.”
Fortunately the Indians enjoyed a deep bench to relieve players when they got tired, an unusual treat for the team. As in the Indians’ 46-21 upset against Stony Brook on March 26, the JV players played on varsity. This time they were at full strength with 14 girls.
Shelter Island was able to disrupt the Red Devils’ offense to a point, forcing Center Moriches to miss some shots, but “they had some long jumpers to beat us,” Coach Miedema explained.
Kelsey McGayhey scored 8 of the team’s first quarter points and Megan Mundy sank 2 free throws to score the other two.
The Red Devils’ pressure zone defense gave them an unbeatable edge. “It created so many turnovers and just disrupted us offensively, so much so that we couldn’t really get into our set.”
By the end of the third quarter, the score was 41-18, Center Moriches. Though the girls were able to close the gap slightly in the fourth quarter, scoring 13 points while the Red Devils scored 10, Center Moriches took home a solid victory, 51-31.
Point guard Mackenzie Needham played a particularly strong game, Coach Miedema said, despite non-stop pressure from the Red Devils. “She’s our best ball handler and they really worked her up and down the floor … that’s exhausting, and she worked really hard to try to get us to score some baskets.”
Nearly always the scoring leader, McGayhey led the game in total points with 24. “Athletically Kelsey was able to keep up with some of the [Center Moriches] girls,” Coach Miedema noted, “but Mackenzie worked very hard to keep the ball on our hands as much as she could.” Needham also scored a 3-pointer and a field goal. Coach Miedema was very pleased with the entire team’s effort overall.
The Indians’ 51-31 loss to such a strong squad shows how far the Indians have come since the start of their season. The girls gained momentum as their regular season wound down, going on a winning streak to squeak into the Section XI playoffs with a win against Pierson/Bridgehampton on February 16.
The girls earned a bye into the Class C and D championship game since they were the only Class D team to earn a 6-6 regular season record. An upset victory in that game over Stony Brook earned the Shelter Island girls basketball program its first Class C and D championship ever.
The Indians main focus now is preparing for tomorrow’s Class D quarterfinal match against Coleman Catholic of Hurley, New York. “They have a pretty good history of having some good basketball teams,” Coach Miedema explained. Coleman Catholic captured the Class D state championship in 2009 and went to the semifinals last year after Shelter Island forfeited the quarterfinal match.
The game starts tomorrow at 3 p.m. at SUNY New Paltz. Follow @sireporternews on twitter.com for live game updates.
