Everything Goes Wrong in Blue Devils’ Loss
Just about everything that could go wrong, did, as the Huntington girls’ basketball team lost to Hampton Bays in a non-elimination game for the Suffolk Small School’s title, 55-46. The Blue Devils will play for the Long Island Class A championship Friday night at 5:30 p.m. at St. Joseph’s College in Patchogue.
Huntington’s shooters were frigid in the opening minutes, and for most of the game, as Hampton Bays bolted to an early lead thanks in part to the play of their forward, Kelly Cavallo, who scored the team’s first eight points.
The Blue Devils’ found themselves trailing by as many as nine points in the first half, before going on a 10-0 run to claim the team’s first lead of the night. Huntington went on to build a small four point advantage, but it didn’t last long.
Cavallo was tough to stop inside, while the Hampton Bays (20-3) guards also made life miserable for the Blue Devils who just couldn’t connect from the outside with any consistency. Huntington (17-6) had plenty of opportunities, to be sure, but failed repeatedly to score on put backs and even open shots.
Down by nine points with about 6:30 remaining in the game, Huntington finally mounted a comeback, quickly winnowing the deficit to just two points. That’s as close as the Blue Devils could get, before another string of turnovers, missed shots, calls that went the other way and other misfortunes essentially doomed them.
Despite a pair of three-pointers and 12 points in all, Huntington’s Kerry Hicks was clearly off her game all night, as was the usually dangerous Maria Marascia (seven points), who made up for a cold shooting performance with some splendid defensive plays. But, with Cavallo pumping in baskets, the lack of a sustained Blue Devil offense was fatal.
The one bright spot was the play of senior Casey Scully, who scored a team-high 14 points, including several baskets at crucial points that breathed life into Huntington’s stagnant scoring efforts. Scully played one of her best games of the season and Caitlin Ortiz was effective off the bench, scoring from downtown at just the right time, but in the end it wasn’t enough.
Fortunately, the loss was virtually meaningless, since the game was merely to determine the Small School’s county champion, which annually goes on to play the Class AA champ for Suffolk’s overall title. The loss doesn’t impact Huntington’s berth in the Long Island finals, where it will play the Nassau Class A winner for the right to advance to the New York State Final Four.
Coach Brad Reminick now plans to refocus his team’s attention on its goal of winning the school’s first LI title in the sport.
Blue Devil Notes: Matte Scully (four points) turned in a fine effort, with some gritty defensive play . . . Julie Forster (six points) had the unenviable assignment of trying to stop Cavallo, who has signed a national letter of intent to play at St. Joseph’s University in Philadelphia next year . . . Cavallo transferred mid-season from Westhampton Beach to Hampton Bays . . . Huntington was down at halftime, 23-21 and was trailing 39-30 entering the fourth quarter.
All graphics, photographs, and text appearing on the Huntington Public Schools home page and subsequent official web pages are protected by copyright. Redistribution or commercial use is prohibited without express written permission. Comments or Questions? email the Public Information Office