STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. \u2014 Ray Guerriero wowed the crowd with a quadruple-double and McKee\/Staten Island Tech built an early lead it would never relinquish as it registered a 75-63 Borough President Vito Fossella SIHSL Tournament second-round victory over visiting Tottenville Thursday in New Dorp.<\/p>\n
The Seagulls won the rubber match against their PSAL 3A rivals thanks largely to a game-opening 24-6 run that gave them momentum that carried throughout the contest.<\/p>\n
Leading 7-4 in the opening minutes, the Seagulls received buckets from Nizayah Jordan (three-pointer), Terence Legrand (layup in transition) and Guerriero (rebound) to increase the lead to 10.<\/p>\n
Tottenville\u2019s Elias Souleidis broke the spell with a short jumper, but Guerriero and Legrand sandwiched layups by Lucas Gavin and Jordan with a trey and conventional three-point play, respectively, to take a 24-6 lead with 25 ticks left in the opening period.<\/p>\n
\u201cReal happy with the effort out of the gate. It\u2019s important to set the tone and understanding the situation that we\u2019re in,\u2019’ said MSIT head coach Charlie Donohue, whose team wouldn\u2019t allow the Pirates to get any closer than seven points the rest of the way. \u201dI always tell the kids it\u2019s not about who we\u2019re playing \u2014 it\u2019s how we\u2019re playing. I thought we did a good job answering the bell <\/p>\n
\u201cWe let them back in the game. They got some guys who can score, but we did what we had to do to hold on for the win.\u2019’<\/p>\n
Player of the game<\/p>\n
Guerriero was the undisputed player of the game after recording a quadruple double, including 16 points, 16 rebounds, 10 assists and 11 steals. He also took a charge. The ever-hustling senior appeared to have his hands in on everything and often grabbed a defensive board, looked up and hit a teammate who would score in transition.<\/p>\n
Legrand, meanwhile, finished with a team-high 21 points for the Gulls, including a pair of three-pointers.<\/p>\n
Highlights<\/p>\n
MSIT\u2019s big run was fueled by a stingy 1-2-2 three-quarters press that helped produce nine turnovers in the first quarter. The Seagulls turned a lot of those miscues into points.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur press always seems to work. They don\u2019t know where to go,\u2019’ said Guerriero. \u201dAs long as we keep our hands up and play with energy, I trust my teammates to fill in the spots and we always (cash in on the other end).\u2019’<\/p>\n
Thanks in part to Tottenville senior Danny Garcia (game-high 25 points), the Pirates only trailed 57-49 with just over 4:00 to go in the game. However, Jordan and Legrand teamed for 10 points during a 12-2 burst in a 1:46 span that all but sealed the victory.<\/p>\n
Coach\u2019s take<\/p>\n
\u201cLegrand hit a big three-pointer early in the third quarter that put our lead back up to 12 and it could have gone the other way if he doesn\u2019t hit that when he did,\u2019’ said Donohue. \u201dKeeping it around 12 at that point, I thought we did a really good job never really letting them close in on us. We got to do a better job hitting layups and free throws down the stretch, but this is where we live and learn.\u2019’<\/p>\n
Next up<\/p>\n
The No. 7-seeded Seagulls advance to Saturday\u2019s quarterfinals and will meet No. 2 seed and seven-time defending SIHSL Tournament champion St. Peter\u2019s at Petrides at 2:30 p.m.<\/p>\n
The winner of that contest will square off against the Monsignor Farrell-New Dorp victory in Monday\u2019s semifinals.<\/p>\n
Stats corner<\/p>\n
The Seagulls, who only used a rotation of six players, received contributions from everyone who played. Jordan added 19 points, including a pair of treys. Dalton Cherubin chipped in with 10 while fellow starter Gavin and sixth man Jayden Chen combined for another nine points … Garcia\u2019s offensive production included three treys and a 6-for-6 performance from the charity stripe. Antonio Tarantino and Shiloh Ezderman added 14 and 10 points, respectively, for the Pirates … Tottenville won the battle of the boards, 41-38, behind Michael Cinque (nine), Ezderman (eight) and Garcia (seven). Cherubin grabbed 10 caroms for MSIT … The Pirates connected on 9 of 12 freebies (8 for 8 in the fourth quarter) while MSIT hit 10 of 18 …Tarantino and Cinque took charges for the Pirates.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. \u2014 Ray Guerriero wowed the crowd with a quadruple-double and McKee\/Staten Island Tech built an…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":124901,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39],"tags":[9,24,63,134,136,135],"class_list":{"0":"post-124900","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-staten-island","8":"tag-new-york","9":"tag-new-york-city","10":"tag-nyc","11":"tag-staten-island","12":"tag-staten-island-headlines","13":"tag-staten-island-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/124900","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=124900"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/124900\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/124901"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=124900"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=124900"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=124900"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}