MANHATTAN \u2014 Staten Island Academy saw its season come to an end on Thursday as the Tigers dropped an 89-66 New York State Association of Independent Schools (NYSAIS) B quarterfinal decision to Columbia Prep at the Spence School. <\/p>\n
SIA (20-6) came into the tournament, which pits the top eight independent schools in New York against each other, as the No. 7 seed and No. 2 and undefeated Columbia Prep gave the Tigers all they could handle as they improved to 24-0 on the season.<\/p>\n
The Tigers were led by Gabe Moschella\u2019s 21 points, while Danny Nowak and Johnny Elefterakis added 11 apiece. Luke DeVito chipped in with seven markers.<\/p>\n
SIA had no answer for CP\u2019s Zack Wasserman in the first quarter, as the sophomore sharpshooter torched the nets for 15 of his game-high 24 points in the period. <\/p>\n
A breakneck pace saw SIA matching the Lions\u2019 firepower, as the Tigers, behind Moschella\u2019s 13 first-quarter points, trailed 23-20 before a flurry of CP baskets in the last 2 1\/2 minutes of the quarter allowed the Manhattan school to end the period on a 13-2 run, giving it a 36-22 advantage over the visitors.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey are such a tough team to prepare for,\u201d Tigers head coach, Mike Mazella, marveled. \u201cThe way they shoot the ball (five treys in the first quarter alone) is impressive, and their pace of play is so hectic. We actually did a good job breaking their press and getting several layups in the first quarter, but on the defensive end we were getting beat to every 50-50 ball and just weren\u2019t getting any stops. When you score 22 points in the first quarter, you should have the lead, but instead we were staring at a large deficit.\u201d <\/p>\n
Things didn\u2019t get much better for SIA in the second quarter as senior Jake Wasserman would connect for eight points to help expand the Lions\u2019 lead to 19 at halftime.<\/p>\n
In the third quarter, SIA\u2019s offense went cold, and the relentless CP attack forced a host of Tigers turnovers, as the Lions put the game away with a 24-point explosion in the period. At times the Lions\u2019 offense seemed unstoppable, as Sam Schiffman (22 points) and the Wasserman brothers proved too much for the Academy. <\/p>\n
\u201cObviously, we knew coming in that they were a very talented offensive team and that we were going to have to play our best to match up with them. They\u2019ve scored over 100 points in five games this year, and they\u2019ve scored in the 90s on five other occasions. You can\u2019t just key on Zack Wasserman, because his brother and their other players are knock-down shooters.\u201d<\/p>\n
Elefterakis would score eight points in the final period, including two three-pointers, while Shiv Thakkar and Johan Wielens combined for six points and six rebounds in the final quarter, as the Tigers battled until the end.<\/p>\n
\u201cI can\u2019t say enough about the admiration I have for our team,\u201d Mazella noted. \u201cComing down the stretch of our season and over the last five games, we\u2019ve had two of our starters fighting through some really painful injuries, and when you\u2019re playing the caliber of opponent that you\u2019re going to see in the (SIHSL) Tourney, the ACIS postseason, and then the NYSAIS tourney, you really need to be at full strength. But we\u2019ve battled throughout the year, and I couldn\u2019t be prouder of our seniors and all the guys on this team. Getting 20 wins is quite an accomplishment, and for the first time since the NYSAIS tournament\u2019s inception, we were selected as one of the top eight independent schools. So as disappointing as this loss might be, that\u2019s something that these guys are going to look back on with great pride.\u201d<\/p>\n
In addition to two of their top scorers in Nowak and DeVito, the Tigers will say goodbye to fellow seniors Thakkar and Wielens, as well as Ayden Howe, Lorenzo Malpeso, and Jayden Ai.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"MANHATTAN \u2014 Staten Island Academy saw its season come to an end on Thursday as the Tigers dropped…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":139945,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39],"tags":[9,24,63,134,136,135],"class_list":["post-139944","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-staten-island","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc","tag-staten-island","tag-staten-island-headlines","tag-staten-island-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/139944","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=139944"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/139944\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/139945"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=139944"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=139944"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=139944"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}