STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. — The 2025-26 season has been a grind to say the least for St. Peter\u2019s and fourth-year head coach Ryan Woods.<\/p>\n
The Eagles, seven-time defending SIHSL tourney champs, are off to an uncharacteristic 2-7 start overall (0-4 CHSAA) and just 1-2 CHSAA-Staten Island as they visited Monsignor Farrell Friday night.<\/p>\n
To complicate matters even more, the New Brighton school is playing with one of its youngest and inexperienced squads in a while, with only one senior currently on its roster in forward Nico Parlanti.<\/p>\n
But, as Woods knows all too well, nobody on Staten Island is shedding a tear over the Eagles\u2019 early season misfortunes.<\/p>\n
Certainly not the archrival Lions, who went on the road to topple the Eagles 52-47 in December for first-year head coach Danny Fisher\u2019s initial varsity win.<\/p>\n
While the second half of the season is just getting underway the game had an equal amount of importance for both clubs, but maybe just a little more for the Eagles and behind the play of Parlanti, juniors Ryan Freeman and Aaron Vazquez they held on for a gritty 44-43 CHSAASI decision in Oakwood.<\/p>\n
The Eagles, who got their lead up to as much as nine at the onset of the fourth quarter, withstood a late Lions rally behind their play on the defensive end to escape with the victory.<\/p>\n
Parlanti scored 12 points to lead the winners, while Freeman and Vazquez scored 11 and 10, respectively. Matt Scalisi (four assists) and Ryan Hanley split 24 for Farrell (6-7 overall, 2-2 CHSAASI), while Michael Abreu added 10.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe knew Farrell wasn\u2019t going to pack it in even when we got the lead up to nine in the fourth; Danny (Fisher) is such a good coach and he does a good job with that team,\u201d admitted Woods. \u201cWe knew the punch was coming, but what I was so proud of was the next-play mentality our boys had. If we missed a switch or we didn\u2019t grab a defensive rebound guys didn\u2019t get down. They battled to the next play and that is something we\u2019ve been working on with such a young team.\u201d<\/p>\n
The challenge of dealing with so much youth is also something that Woods has welcomed.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a different dynamic, but it\u2019s been very rewarding for sure so far,\u201d said Woods. \u201cThe kids come every day to work; they\u2019re good kids and they\u2019re getting valuable experience.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hanley\u2019s putback opened the game\u2019s scoring and after Vazquez scored inside, then sank 1 of 2 from the line for a 3-2 lead. The Eagles would never trail again in the contest that was played at a helter-skelter pace throughout.<\/p>\n
Leading by five (36-31) entering the final stanza, Vazquez opened the scoring with a freebie and Parlanti nailed a right-corner trey to up the lead to nine with just over six minutes to play. It was the Eagles\u2019 biggest lead since 26-16 late in the second and Fisher signaled for a timeout to attempt to regroup. <\/p>\n
It paid off as STP would score just four points over the game\u2019s final 5:50 as Farrell chipped away at the deficit.<\/p>\n
Scalisi hit a pair from the stripe, then kept a possession alive with a hustle rebound and fed Abreu inside to slice the lead to 40-35. Vazquez answered off a pretty feed from Noah Scott (three helpers, steal), but JJ Yates hit two from the line and Scalisi got into the lane for a basket and the Lions clawed their way back to 44-41 with just under three to play.<\/p>\n
St. Peter\u2019s went cold from the line — missing four in a row down the stretch as it looked to ice the game and when Abreu putback a long missed three at the :57 second mark the Lions were just a point down at 44-43.<\/p>\n
After playing most of the contest in 2-3 and 1-3-1 zones, the Eagles went back to their traditional man-to-man defense in the fourth and it paid dividends as they frustrated Farrell into a trio of difficult shots in the game\u2019s closing seconds to secure the win.<\/p>\n
\u201cI know as the only senior on the team now there is pressure on me to lead and I\u2019m fine with that,\u201d said Parlanti, who had six boards and two assists on the night. \u201cI\u2019m holding myself and everybody else accountable and we have been really working hard to turn things around. Tonight was a big win, especially since they beat us the first time. Hopefully it can help us have a better second half overall.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cNico is my guy; he is our only senior now and I\u2019m so proud of the work he has put in,\u201d praised Woods. \u201cWe rely on him for a lot and run a lot of things through him and he continues to deliver.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cHim, along with Ryan (Freeman) and Aaron (Vazquez) really gave us a lift tonight.\u201d<\/p>\n
The St. Peter\u2019s zone was a factor early in holding the Lions to just six first-quarter points and 2 for 11 shooting.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe wanted to mix things up defensively and throw different looks at everyone,\u201d explained Woods. \u201cOur zone was effective early and the man was very good late in the game and helped secure the win.\u201d<\/p>\n
***<\/p>\n
NOTES: The Eagles are back in action as they travel to Queens to face Molloy Sunday at 4:30 p.m., while Farrell hosts Xavier Tuesday afternoon at 4:30 … Scott (six), Freeman (five), Vazquez (five) and Victor Baez (five) were all active on the glass for STP, which held a 34-20 rebounding edge … Yates led Farrell with five, while Abreu had four … Parlanti, Vazquez, Abreu and Jack Gomez all drew charges in the game.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. — The 2025-26 season has been a grind to say the least for St. Peter\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":95718,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39],"tags":[9,24,63,134,136,135],"class_list":{"0":"post-95717","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\/95717","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=95717"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95717\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/95718"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=95717"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=95717"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=95717"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}