New Hyde Park Boys Basketball Beat Garden City, 62-50

won this late season Conference A-1 game 62-50 over Garden City.

With only four games left in the season, every game is crucial. It was a tight game until New Hyde Park pulled away late in the fourth quarter. They are now tied for first place with Garden City, Westbury and Jericho in the conference with a 5-3 record. They have a 7-6 record overall; Garden City now has a 7-5 overall record.

Hero: Garden City’s Dan Colamussi was the leading scorer for the Trojans with 16 points and 9 rebounds. Griffin Eilbeck finished with 12 points.

of New Hyde Park was the leading scorer of the night with 19 points. He knocked down crucial free throws along with teammate , who finished with 16 points and 12 rebounds. The two forwards of New Hyde Park also did a good job in limiting Colamussi, who has been a huge offensive threat for the Trojans this year.

Turning Point: The game was an intense battle all the way into the fourth quarter. Garden City and New Hyde Park were exchanging shot for shot on each end. Colamussi was leading the offense and Simeon was battling equally as hard on the opposing side. Sophomore Eddie Blatz of Garden City was also playing well, pulling down critical offensive and defensive rebounds. However, New Hyde Park pulled away with a late minute run and put themselves up by ten points with 5 minutes to go. They held on to win 62-50.

Quotable: “We have to get back to practice," said Garden City Head Coach Larry Steimer after the game. "We played very disjointedly. We played well in spots. We just have to work on playing more consitently. We also have to play a little bit better defense.

New Hyde Park Head Coach Don Rood said of his team's win, “Our keys to winning tonight was defense. We conceded a lot of fouls, but did a good job shooting outside. We also stopped their big man. We took an inside out approach to try to make them shoot outside.

Bottom Line: Both teams played hard in a close contest in a battle for first place in Conference A-1. They both have a tough road ahead of them as Jericho and Westbury are two tough squads. All the teams in the conference have had a fair shot at each other in this point in the season. It is now coming down to the wire in an exciting race for playoffs. 

Who's Next? New Hyde Park plays Westbury @ home on Tuesday at 6:15 p.m.

Teams                  1                2                3             4                 Final
Trojans               16              7               12            17                 50
Gladiators         15             10              15            22                62

NHP: Joseph Justice 16-0-19, Simeon 10-6-16, Kevin Towey 2-4-12, Faizal Hussein 8-0-8, Adam Priest 4-0-4. GC: Colamussi 14-2-16, Eddie Blatz 8-2-10, James Cauchi 4-2-6, Joe Capetola 2-0-2, Frank Cordio 2-0-2, Stefan Vasiljevic 2-0-2.

Three pointers: NHP: Joseph Justice, Towey 2, Dan Justice 1. GC: Griffin Eilbech 4.