STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. \u2014 As he watched the clock wind down on his Xaverian squad\u2019s 70-34 victory over St. Joseph by-the-Sea in the semifinals of the Girls JV AAA Playoffs, Varsity Head Coach Mark Spelman was filled with anticipation.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis just became the biggest weekend in the history of our program,\u201d said the Tottenville resident. <\/p>\n
Just 24 hours earlier, with three Islanders in his starting lineup, his Clippers had knocked off Nazareth, 48-46, in the Brooklyn-Queens Varsity AAA semis. They will face Christ the King on Saturday night at the Royals\u2019 gym in Middle Village, Queens, with the school\u2019s first-ever Varsity Girls title on the line. <\/p>\n
The JV contest is set for Sunday afternoon at Cardinal Spellman, where Xaverian will take on Nazareth.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m very happy for all of our girls,\u201d said Spelman. \u201cThey\u2019ve worked so hard over the course of a very long season and it\u2019s great to see their efforts rewarded.\u201d<\/p>\n
Led by a starting lineup featuring Islanders Isabella Grimaldi (CHSAA Third Team All-League), Casey McGinn, and Giuliana Bentivegna, as well as All-League guard Callie Mullin, Xaverian avenged two regular season losses to the Lady Kingsmen in their victory on Thursday. An even tougher task looms on Saturday night as they take on the top-seeded Royals on their home court.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve got our hands full,\u201d said Spelman. \u201cThey have the league MVP in Josie Pinnock and their center, Olivia Vukosa, is going to play at Connecticut. We\u2019ll have to play our best game of the season to win.\u201d<\/p>\n
The best game of the season is exactly what JV Head Coach Kasey Thatcher got from her charges against Sea as the undefeated, defending CHSAA AAA champs turned a first half nail-biter into a rout with a 47-13 blitz after intermission, punching their ticket to a second consecutive title contest. <\/p>\n
\u201cThey were terrific in the second half,\u201d said Thatcher of Castleton Corners, whose team led just 23-21 at the break. \u201cThe defensive intensity was through the roof. Tiffany gave us a huge lift.\u201d <\/p>\n
Thatcher was referring to Concord resident Tiffany Tetteviah, who stifled the Vikings on each foray into the paint throughout the second stanza. <\/p>\n
\u201cTiffany is such a presence for us,\u201d said Thatcher. \u201cWhen she\u2019s playing the way she did tonight, it allows everyone else to overplay the ball and pressure the opponent because they know, if they get beat, Tiffany is there to prevent a layup. She was terrific tonight.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAt halftime, Coach told us we had to get the jitters out,\u201d said Tetteviah. \u201cWhen we came out in the third quarter, we started pressing them and turning them over and we just went from there.\u201d<\/p>\n
Led by sophomore Taylor Sorrentino\u2019s 35 points and 11 more from Alexis Lapre of Dongan Hills, the Clippers ran their season record to 17-1 and now turn their attention to Nazareth.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re going to have to make sure we\u2019re in help-defense against them,\u201d Lapre said of Nazareth. \u201cTheir bigs are very aggressive inside but, as long as we double team them in the paint, we\u2019ll be all right.\u201d<\/p>\n
As for Thatcher, whose squad includes seven freshmen including Islanders Veronica Baillargeon, Ladream Walton, Addison Amanieros and sophomore Emily Schwarzrock in addition to Tetteviah and Lapre, this year\u2019s playoff run is very different from a year ago.<\/p>\n
\u201cLast season, we pulled a huge upset in the semis over Sea to get to the finals. We were very much the underdog\u2019\u201d she said. \u201cThis season, we\u2019re the ones with the target on our backs. We get everyone\u2019s best game. It\u2019s been great to see our girls rise to the occasion, especially since we\u2019re so young. The one constant, though, is effort and teamwork. I love the way these girls support each other and work together. If we play our game on Sunday, I think they\u2019ll be very happy.\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. \u2014 As he watched the clock wind down on his Xaverian squad\u2019s 70-34 victory over…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":141014,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39],"tags":[9,24,63,134,136,135],"class_list":["post-141013","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\/141013","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=141013"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/141013\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/141014"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=141013"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=141013"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=141013"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}