For the first time EVER, the Girls’ Varsity Basketball team has won the Class A Sectional Championship. Their come from behind 62 -54 win over Pearl River in the County Center, was truly one for the record books. Mercury salutes the Players, the Coaches,the families, and everyone who has supported our girls up to this point. Next stop is Friday at WCC. We”re with you girls!
Watchhighlights of the game at MSG Varsity:
http://www.msgvarsity.com/westchester/peekskill?tab=Sports&type=All&date=All&sportid=2.254&p=
Watch some of Mercury’s Video Highlights here:
http://www.schooltube.com/video/acd55b6cf7cf8e10cc26/Girls-Varsity-Class-A-Championship
More pictures on the Peekskill Patch:
http://peekskill.patch.com/articles/red-devils-make-history-win-sectional-championship#photo-5165993
Read what the Journal News is saying-
WHITE PLAINS — For five long years, Tasia Nolan toiled away for Peekskill. No articles in the paper, no honors, no nothing. Peekskill girls basketball was a non-entity in Section 1.
For years, decades, they lived at the bottom of the standings. Nolan and the girls in her class never sniffed a playoff win.
Then, suddenly, Peekskill made a run at the Class A championship in her junior season. It suffered a score-tying 40-foot shot by Pearl River in the semifinals before coming back to win, then lost to Lakeland in the final.
Nolan started at the bottom and saw a little bit of everything on her way to the top. But even she might not have seen a turnaround like the Red Devils managed in the Class A championship Sunday night.
In overcoming a 16-point, third-quarter deficit to beat Pearl River 62-54, they put on a display that no County Center team has come close to, and engineered perhaps the greatest comeback by any team all season.
“I’ve been waiting for this for five years,” said Nolan, the tournament MVP of the program’s first-ever championship.
The Red Devils were shocked last season when Melissa Loughnane’s 40-foot heave sent their semifinal to overtime. It was just as shocking for the top-seeded Red Devils to be down 38-22 Sunday in the third quarter to Loughnane and the second-seeded Pirates.
“We kind of figured they would hand us the gold ball,” Nolan confessed. “It wasn’t until we were down that we got it in our mind that they wanted it as much as we did. We had to put it all out on the floor.”
For a program that had been down for so long, success came easy to this group. They began to take wins for granted as they stormed through Section 1 with a 21-1 record.
“The girls had to feel the urgency,” coach Rodney Headley Jr. said. “I asked them, ‘Is this what you’ve been putting all this work in for? What do you want out of this game, this season?’ ”
They were in disarray when Christy Carty’s layup put them behind by 16. Pearl River’s press forced them into 22 turnovers in just over one half of basketball.
It’s then that Nolan (14 points, 15 rebounds, four assists) started to come alive, scoring Peekskill’s next eight points. Two buckets by fellow senior Sheridan Taylor (16 points, nine rebounds) and a free throw by junior Asia Jackson (13 points) made it 43-35 after three quarters.
Jazmin Garcia (15 points, seven steals) opened the fourth with a putback and foul, though she missed the free throw. Two possessions later she was fouled again while hitting the shot. This time she converted, and the score was 43-40.
After Christa Scognamiglio broke Peekskill’s press for two of her 19 points, Peekskill scored 10 straight points.
Down 45-44, Taylor blocked a shot, grabbed the ball, and hurled a baseball pass to Jackson, who scored the go-ahead bucket.
“We open up practices the first 10 minutes with baseball passes,” Headley said.
Peekskill’s press began to force turnovers by the barrel. Whenever they got a steal, they would throw it downcourt for easy scores. Pearl River (20-2) had 32 turnovers in all.
Scognamiglio’s 3-pointer with 29 seconds left got the Pirates within 56-54, but Garcia scored at the other end to effectively end it. Nicole Grossbard had nine points and six assists, Christy Carty had six points and nine rebounds, and Allison Cook had 10 points for Pearl River.
“It’s all about the boys program at our school,” Taylor said. “This time it’s about the girls.”