![\"Big](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/V7EQHCRABFB7TORIB6ZPQSE5EE.JPG\")
Junior reserve Luca Mineo (24) scored eight of his 10 points during the game-turning fourth quarter as St. Joseph by-the-Sea registered a CHSAA A\/Staten Island division victory over visiting Moore Catholic.(Courtesy of Mark Militar)<\/p>\nSTATEN ISLAND, N.Y. \u2014 For three quarters of Wednesday\u2019s battle between Moore Catholic and host St. Joseph by-the-Sea, Vikings head coach Mike Cortese and his staff felt they did everything they could to prepare and game-plan for the Mavs in an early-season CHSAA A\/Staten Island division test.<\/p>\n
They had a good week of practice and a good film session with assistant coach Mike Tesoriero following a tough loss Saturday to defending A city champ St. John\u2019s Prep, but things weren\u2019t going too well through the game\u2019s first 24 minutes.<\/p>\n
The host team couldn\u2019t find any rhythm offensively and Mavs senior guard Eenej Vinson was having his way at both ends of the floor as the Graniteville school silenced the Vikings faithful and held a 13-point lead at the end of three thanks in part to Vinson\u2019s 22 points.<\/p>\n
But the game is four quarters long and while Cortese still didn\u2019t have answers during the huddle prior to the fourth quarter, his young squad did.<\/p>\n
\u201cI threw the clipboard down, shook my head and said \u2018guys, talk to me,\u2019\u201d quipped Cortese. \u201cThey looked at each other for a second and Johnny Paturzo said \u2018let\u2019s play some pick-and-roll basketball\u2019; Nick Rebracca said \u2018come on, let\u2019s man up\u2019 and then we just went out there and turned things around.\u201d<\/p>\n
To say they turned things around may be an understatement. The Vikings wound up completely flipping the script in the final stanza.<\/p>\n
They stymied the Mavs and, behind junior reserve Luca Mineo and junior guard Nick Lee, pitched a fourth-quarter shutout, closing the game with a 25-0 (23-0 in the fourth) run to solidify an improbable 52-42 decision in Huguenot.<\/p>\n
Rebracca (four boards, two blocks) finished with a team-high 18 markers, including 12 of 14 from the free-throw line, while Lee shook off a rough shooting night to score nine of his 15 points down the stretch to lead Sea. Mineo (four rebounds) tallied eight of his 10 points in the final quarter.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe were down 13 going into the fourth, we really had nothing going on for three quarters, but we just came together as a team, knocked some big shots down, got some big stops on defense and we were able to turn things around,\u201d noted Mineo, who had several key plays on the defensive end as well. \u201cOnce that first shot went down it really gave me some confidence and it happened with the whole team. It\u2019s a big win especially since we have another big game with Peter\u2019s Friday.\u201d<\/p>\n
Cortese knows there will be some growing pains this year, but the veteran coach had to be pleased with the team\u2019s second win against an Island rival.<\/p>\n
Junior reserve Luca Mineo (24) scored eight of his 10 points during the game-turning fourth quarter as St. Joseph by-the-Sea registered a CHSAA A\/Staten Island division victory over visiting Moore Catholic.(Courtesy of Mark Militar)<\/p>\n
\u201cI wish I could take some credit for that comeback, but it\u2019s a credit to the boys and their hard work,\u201d praised Cortese. \u201cIt\u2019s their team and it is moments like this that I hope they realize that. It\u2019s my staff\u2019s and my job to try and plug the right pieces and make the right calls, but at the end of the day it\u2019s a team and we really worked as one today and that was big for us,\u201d added the 14th-year head coach.<\/p>\n
Moore held a comfortable 31-22 lead at the intermission and built an even more cushy 42-27 bulge late in the third before Lee\u2019s lay-in made it a 13-point deficit heading into the fourth.<\/p>\n
But, the Vikings dug in and their defense and intensity could not be matched by the visitors over the game\u2019s final eight minutes.<\/p>\n
Mineo got things started with a left wing trey and Rebracca\u2019s three-point play (kept alive by a key offensive rebound from Jack Boyle) sliced the Mavs\u2019 lead to 42-35 at the 6:20 mark.<\/p>\n
Lee\u2019s steal resulted from the third turnover the Vikings forced early in the period” to clarify that the steal came from a forced turnover. and the mercurial guard went coast-to-coast to cut the deficit to five at 42-37. Mineo scored back-to-back buckets in transition off feeds from Paturzo and Rebracca canned 1 of 2 from the line to tie the score at 42-42 with just over four minutes to play.<\/p>\n
Then, Paturzo scored his only bucket of the game in traffic off a pretty pass from Lee and the Vikings took their first lead since the 5:10 mark of the opening period at 44-42 and would never trail again as the Mavs failed to register a point in the period. Boyle found Lee for a back-breaking triple from the right wing at the 1:53 mark and the junior guard canned four straight from the line to salt away the victory.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe got some key plays from big-shot Luca (Mineo) at both ends of the floor; he brings energy and is a smart player,\u201d said Cortese. \u201cI got on Lee early for some poor decision-making that is unlike him, but it\u2019s all about mental toughness and his growth and maturity and it paid off in the end as he made some big plays down the stretch for us.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sea\u2019s cold start and Vinson\u2019s hot one gave the contest a different look over the first two periods. The senior guard was perfect from the line (6 for 6). He also canned a trey and coupled with the play of senior forward Matt Gibbons (seven points) things were looking up for Moore, which had a week off since its season-opening loss to St. John\u2019s Prep (87-59).<\/p>\n
***<\/p>\n
NOTES: Things don\u2019t get any easier for the Vikings (2-1) as they entertain the Eagles Friday (7 p.m.), while the Mavs will look to get in the win column when St. Edmund\u2019s visits Graniteville Saturday (3 p.m.) … Sea played the game without junior forward Joey Moran (illness). Cortese said his status for Friday is up in the air … Lee finished with three rebounds, three assists, four steals and a block, while Boyle snatched seven caroms to lead Sea … Vinson and Gibbons each had seven boards for Moore, while big man Alexander Raphael had an active night inside with four rebounds and a pair of blocks.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. \u2014 For three quarters of Wednesday\u2019s battle between Moore Catholic and host St. Joseph by-the-Sea,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":60883,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39],"tags":[9,24,63,134,136,135],"class_list":{"0":"post-60882","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\/60882","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=60882"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60882\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/60883"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=60882"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=60882"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=60882"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}