Sports
New Hyde Park Girls Basketball Falls to Garden City, 52-41
An early third quarter comeback was not enough to overtake the Garden City Trojans.
The (6-4 in conference A-1 play; 9-6 overall) lost to Garden City (7-2 in coference; 11-3 overall) on Saturday morning with a score of 52-41.
Heroes: Center Ciara McCullagh did most of her scoring in the first half and in the beginning of the third but Garden City's double team defense stifled her late in the game. She ended up with 13 points and 12 rebounds.
Like McCullagh, guard Lexie Peveraro was hot early on but faded down the stretch for the Gladiators. She ended up with a total ten points. Forward Maria Katsoulis had eight points off of four field goals.
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Turning point: After being down by four points at halftime, New Hyde Park came out hot in the second half. They scored eight points to take the lead 35-33 early in the third quarter off of big baskets by McCullagh and Lexie Peveraro.
Unfortunately it would be their last lead as the Trojans came storming back. Their superstar forward Barbara Sullivan got on a hot streak scoring nine straight points for her team.
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New Hyde Park went cold in the fourth quarter getting only one basket towards the end of regulation. The Gladiators could not make up the deficit losing to a team they had beaten earlier in the season.
Quotable: "We had them," said Coach Hugh Flaherty. "We were right there but we did not play the whole 32 minutes like we needed to. We played great in spurts but we need to be in it for thirty two minutes."
Bottom line: "Our guards did not shoot well down the stretch," said Flaherty. "We need to be able to up our production in order to take pressure off the post. We also had a little more turnovers than we'd like to have."
The Gladiators are now fourth place in the conference behind teams like Garden City. They need to play strong in their last two remaining games starting with an away game at Wantagh on Tuesday at 4:30 p.m.
Their final regular season game will be home against Jericho on Friday at 4:30 p.m.
Who's next? New Hyde Park plays Wantagh @ Wantagh Tuesday at 4:30 p.m.
Teams ................ 1 ... 2 ... 3 ... 4 ... F
New Hyde Park 10 .. 17 .. 12 .. 2 .. 41
Garden City ..... 17 ... 14 .. 15 ... 6 . 52
NHP: McCullagh 12-1-13, Peveraro 4-0-10, Katsouli 8-0-8. Gabby Tomasini 6-0-6, Victoria Lofaro 4-0-4. GC: Barbara Sullivan 14-3-29, Christina Mangels 10-0-10, Kim Ryan 4-0-7, Elizabeth Stutzman 4-0-4, Jess Stein 0-1-1, Katie Trimmer 0-1-1.
Three pointers: NHP: Peveraro 2, GC: Sullivan 4, Ryan
