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Sea’s Nick Rebracca had another big night against Susan Wagner in the SIHSL semifinals.Michael O’Brien<\/p>\nSTATEN ISLAND, N.Y.\u2014 As Jaques Award candidate Nick Rebracca poured in 23 points to post back-to-back 20-plus performances in a 64\u201340 President Vito Fossella SIHSL Tournament semifinal win over Susan Wagner, teammate John Paturzo was equally impactful on the defensive end.<\/p>\n
Paturzo, who added 14 points of his own, held fellow Jaques frontrunner Chris Albano to just seven points while serving as his primary defender, powering Sea to a comprehensive victory and sending the Vikings to the final.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was just comfortable. I knew I also had guys behind me in help defense which made it a whole lot easier,\u201d Paturzo said of his lockdown night after the game.<\/p>\n
Head coach Mike Cortese echoed that praise, saying there were \u201cno surprises\u201d in Paturzo\u2019s stellar defensive performance.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat he does on the court is unbelievable; he does it all, and obviously with the loss of Nicky Lee we\u2019ve asked him to do even more and he hasn\u2019t batted an eye,\u201d Cortese said. <\/p>\n
\u201cHe defends the other team\u2019s best player, he gets into the paint, he rebounds. He was up to the task; he wanted to guard him and did a great job of it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Cortese added that the Vikings\u2019 intensity on the defensive end is \u201csomething we pride ourselves on; I always say we need to defend, rebound and run.\u201d<\/p>\n
That sentiment was reflected throughout the lineup, including junior Joey Moran\u2019s performance. While the power forward scored just six points on the night, he controlled the glass, grabbing 11 rebounds to help Sea dictate the flow of the contest.<\/p>\n
A more understated performance also came from Sea\u2019s Peter Cruciata off the bench. In limited minutes, Cruciata provided a spark whenever he was on the floor; his two points may not jump off the stat sheet, but he matched Paturzo\u2019s defensive intensity, recording a team-high two steals (shared) along with a rebound while helping Sea maintain its defensive dominance.<\/p>\n
The Vikings also set the tone early once again. Coming off a fast 14\u20131 start against Staten Island Academy in the quarterfinals, Sea came out firing against the Falcons, jumping out to 13\u20133 and 16\u20137 leads by the end of the first quarter and continuing their trend of fast starts.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe wanted to set that tone and hoped that it was something they weren\u2019t used to,\u201d Cortese said of another quick opening.<\/p>\n
Rebracca\u2019s scoring touch played a major role in that offensive surge. Along with his five total triples, the Vikings caught fire from beyond the arc as a team, as Luca Mineo (three 3-pointers) and Jack Boyle (two) helped fuel an attack that saw nearly half of Sea\u2019s points come from downtown.<\/p>\n
Paturzo also made sure to credit Rebracca for his continued offensive dominance.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe played amazing. He hit a bunch of shots and kept us going; we couldn\u2019t have won it without him,\u201d Paturzo said.<\/p>\n
Rounding out the Vikings\u2019 night included 11 total points from Mineo, joining Rebracca and Paturzo as Sea\u2019s double-digit scorers on the evening.<\/p>\n
Now, with a championship game set against CHSAA foe and the seven-time defending SIHSL champion St. Peter\u2019s, Cortese said, \u201cit\u2019s going to be a great game. We\u2019re just going to sit back and do our homework for now.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sea’s Nick Rebracca had another big night against Susan Wagner in the SIHSL semifinals.Michael O’Brien<\/p>\n
Paturzo shared a similar mindset.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt feels great; we put in a lot of work to get here,\u201d he said. \u201cBut we\u2019ve got one more. Job\u2019s not finished.\u201d<\/p>\n
The SIHSL tournament championship game is set for Wednesday evening at Petrides, with tip-off slated for 7 p.m.<\/p>\n
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Staten Island Advance<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"STATEN ISLAND, N.Y.\u2014 As Jaques Award candidate Nick Rebracca poured in 23 points to post back-to-back 20-plus performances…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":128316,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39],"tags":[9,24,63,134,136,135],"class_list":{"0":"post-128315","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\/128315","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=128315"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/128315\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/128316"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=128315"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=128315"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=128315"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}