Blue Devil JV Basketball Endures
It’s hard to go through a 16 game season and win only three times. Such an experience requires players to keep one eye on the present and the other on the future, where better times lie.
The Huntington High School junior varsity basketball team went 2-12 in league play and 3-13 overall this past winter, experiencing growing pains with four eighth graders and four freshmen on the roster.
Coached by Timothy Witt, the Blue Devils were captained by Gerard Federici and Freddie Amato. The 14 player squad lost a handful of relatively close games and won a pair of nail biters.
The highlight of the season came when Huntington topped West Islip 66-33 after dropping the first game between the two teams, 38-36. The Blue Devils also defeated Cold Spring Harbor, 61-59 and Centereach, 61-56.
Amato and Federici were Huntington’s top players. An eighth grade guard, Amato proved to be “highly skilled offensively and a strong shooter from three-point range,” Witt said. Federici, a sophomore forward, was a “great leader and great teammate,” the coach added.
The roster also included eighth graders Jaylen Bush, Jaden Jernigan and Robert Kasprzak; freshmen Ian Ardell, Jake Costabile, Aaron McQueen and John Tucker and sophomores Mateo Alzate-Rodrigo, Kyle Chin, Michael Drake, Tyler Gerbavsits and Ryan Gorecki.
“The team greatly improved from day one to the last day,” Witt said. “We showed toughness all season long.”