STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. — McKee\/Staten Island Tech entered its fifth PSAL 3A test of the young season Thursday still trying to find its identity, and despite playing without leading scorer Nizayah Jordan, the Seagulls went on the road and parlayed a 24-7 third-quarter barrage into a 71-38 triumph over host CSI\/McCown.<\/p>\n
The win got the Gulls above .500 in league play at 3-2, while the Dragons, winners of three straight in the league entering the game, fell to 3-2 as well.<\/p>\n
Leading 28-27 at the intermission, MSIT came out of the halftime lockers with a different intensity at both ends of the floor as they held the hosts to just one field goal in the period while nailing four triples keyed by solid ball movement along the perimeter.<\/p>\n
Senior guard Terence Legrand scored eight of his game-high 19 points in the period, including two treys, while Jayden Lin and Oliver Zoduwah split 10 markers in the quarter with one three apiece.<\/p>\n
\u201cI felt like we needed a different look at halftime and we came out in a 3-2 (defense) and stalled them a little bit – didn\u2019t allow them to get as many open shots and we started making some shots of our own and we were able to pull away,\u201d stated MSIT head coach and newest member of the SIHSL 300-win club Charlie Donohue.<\/p>\n
\u201cDanny (Lee) always has his team ready and they play hard, so I told our boys at the half that these are games we have to win if we want to make the city playoffs. I\u2019m proud of the way they responded especially with Niz (Jordan) out again,\u201d added Donohue.<\/p>\n
With Jordan (ankle) unavailable, the Gulls got balanced scoring led by Legrand and buried 11 threes on the evening. Lin added 11, while Dalton Cherubin was also in double figures with 10. Donohue also got solid efforts from Lucas Gavin who had eight, while Zobuwah and William Slocum III scored seven and six, respectively. <\/p>\n
Legrand drilled a right-wing three to kick off the second half and minutes later Gavin hit another as the winners built their lead to 35-29, but when the Dragons went cold from the field, the Gulls began heating up.<\/p>\n
Zobuwah, Slocum and Gavin had key buckets and MSIT limited second chance opportunities, and the result was a 52-34 lead heading into the final period.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re still trying to figure out how to play without our guy (Jordan),\u201d said Donohue. \u201cLegrand made some big shots, but he made even better adjustments when they keyed on him and he made passes to get guys open looks. We have a rotation and we\u2019re still finding things out. The league is very tight and it seems anyone can beat anyone any night. We just need to be tougher and continue to work.\u201d<\/p>\n
The first period was played at a fast pace, and the Dragons held a 14-12 lead on the heels of Patrick Tucker\u2019s five points. Xavier Farley netted seven of his team-high 12 points in the second to keep things close. <\/p>\n
***<\/p>\n
NOTES: Lee and CSIM honored Donohue with a commemorative ball signifying the 300-win milestone prior to the contest … MSIT hosts Petrides Wednesday night in another 3A matchup, while CSIM gets unbeaten Tottenville, Monday evening in New Springville … Both games are 6 p.m. tips.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. — McKee\/Staten Island Tech entered its fifth PSAL 3A test of the young season Thursday…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":68335,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39],"tags":[9,24,63,134,136,135],"class_list":{"0":"post-68334","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\/68334","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=68334"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68334\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/68335"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=68334"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=68334"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=68334"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}