St. Mary's (Manhasset) played 64 nail-biting minutes last week, but when it was over the Gaels extended their perfect start to the season with a pair of signature victories in non-league boys basketball.
It will pay off in the short term with a climb up the New York Class A rankings – the state sportswriters association had them ranked fifth entering the week – and in the bigger picture it will bring more confidence in the CHSAA playoffs and possibly the Federation tournament.
On Thursday, St. Mary's edged No. 4 Long Island Lutheran 57-55 as
Chavaughn Lewis scored 20 points, including a pair of key free throws with 34 seconds to go.
Charles McCann chipped in with 17 points to offset 18 by 6-foot-4 Villanova recruit
Achraf Yacoubou.
On Saturday, St. Mary's improved to 12-0 under coach Bill Harkins with a 67-66 victory over New Rochelle, ranked 13th in Class AA, on McCann's three-point play with 9 seconds remaining at the Big Apple Invitational.
McCann finished with 14 points and 10 rebounds, and
Justin Bailey led the winners with 19 points.
The 6-foot-5 Lewis leads the team in scoring at 24 points a game in addition to eight rebounds – a luxury few teams get out of the shooting guard/small forward position. It's becoming increasingly apparent why colleges that typically don't get the pick of the litter – Canisius, Hofstra and Stony Brook, for instance – are very much on his trail these days.
"He has 24 points per game against competition," Harkins told Newsday. "That speaks volumes about the type of player he is. He is very talented and D-I calls are coming more and more now."
McCann (14.8) tops five others averaging at least 6.5 points a game.
The two victories last week marked the end of the most difficult portion of St. Mary's schedule. With mostly league games left – the Long Island division of the CHSAA is a bit more tame than Brooklyn/Queens – the Gaels could conceivably run the table on the regular season as they carry over the momentum from last year's 20-8 record.
MORE BASKETBALL: A MATTER OF EXTREMES* Your parents or a wise teacher probably warned you at some point to not let the highs in life get you too high or the lows to get you too low. It's sage advice to two of the state's better teams, each coming off a distinctly different weekend result in the Hoophall Classic in Springfield, Mass.
On Sunday, the
Jamesville-DeWitt boys, three-time defending NYSPHSAA Class A champions, picked up an impressive win. Highly regarded
DaJuan Coleman finished with 23 points, 20 rebounds and five assists in a 76-64 victory against Webster Groves, Mo.
In one crucial sequence, Coleman pulled down defensive rebounds and tossed outlet passes to teammates for back-to-back layups. The 6-foot-10 junior then rebounded Webster Groves' next miss, dribbled downcourt and dished for the assist to finish breaking open what had been a 56-52 game.
Tyler Cavanaugh paced the Red Rams (9-0) with 26 points.
Lest they get too impressed with themselves, though, the Red Rams have a game coming up Friday vs. Decatur, Ga., Columbia (10-1) in the Primetime Shootout in Morgantown, W.Va.
At the other extreme, one of New York's dominant girls programs over the last two decades took a shockingly decisive loss Friday at the Hoophall Classic.
Mater Dei (Santa Ana, Calif.) and guard Kaleena Mosqueda-Lewis, a UConn recruit who played for Team USA's Under-17 World Championship squad last summer, put together 17 points and eight rebounds to help her nationally ranked school rout Bergtraum 85-45.
Mater Dei held Bergtraum to just 30.8 percent shooting, breaking to a 9-0 lead and throwing a suffocating trapping defense at the PSAL's perennial champion.
* Though there appears to be an inevitable date with Mount Vernon ahead,
Christian Brothers Academy (Albany) is right on schedule for defending its boys NYSPHSAA Class AA championship.
The Brothers battled to a 66-65 victory against Troy on Friday as senior
Max Weaver (14 points) canned two free throws with 2.1 seconds to go. Troy was unable to get off a shot attempt just past midcourt as time expired.
Senior
Galal Cancer went to the bench with two fouls midway through the first quarter. When the Cornell recruit returned after halftime, Cancer scored 10 of his 18 points and chipped in with two assists while pressing the action during a 24-12 third quarter.
"I didn't want to watch anymore. The guys held tough in the first half," Cancer told The Times Union. "Once I saw a gap, I was attacking it."
*
Penfield won what was probably the Rochester area's most exciting girls game in a decade Friday when sophomore backup guard
Katie Kayes converted a half-court shot at the end of the third overtime for a 73-70 victory against Irondequoit.
Both teams are-state-ranked.
Sophomore forward
Michelle Nesselbush scored 19 of her 21 points after halftime for Penfield (10-0), which is awaiting the return next week of senior
Laura McNamara (ankle injury), last year's team MVP.
* Five teenagers were wounded by gunshots Friday night as spectators exited a game at Bishop Loughlin in Brooklyn. The injuries to four males and a female, all between the ages of 17 and 19, were not serious, authorities said. All were treated at Kings County Hospital Center. Another male was punched in the mouth.
They were attending Loughlin's game against Christ the King, which scored an eight-point win in overtime. The shots were fired just after 10 p.m. near a basketball court outside the school, and police were unsure whether one or more gunmen were involved.
ODDS AND ENDS*
Arlington (LaGrangeville) senior Jordan Yamoah cleared 17 feet, 1 inch in the pole vault at the Stanner Games to extend his state record. Yamoah had broken his own record of 16-6 at a meet last month by clearing 17 feet.
In other action at the meet, North Shore's Samantha Nadel won the girls invitational 3,000 meters in a Long Island-record time of 9:41.36. Ward Melville's Mary Kate Anselmini earned second in a Suffolk County-record time of 9:48.0.
*
Greece Olympia (Rochester) 140-pound wrestler Joe Bonaldi stayed on track for a third trip to the NYSPHSAA championships in Albany by winning his division in Hilton's Clayton Barnard Tournament. Bonaldi scored his 200th career victory in the course of improving to 27-0 for the season.
John Schiano, who has written about high school sports in western and central New York for more than 25 years, covers New York for MaxPreps. He may be reached at johnschianosports@gmail.com.
