Eni Lici is thankful Crystal James is still around.
James, a senior forward, is the last member of the Academy of American Studies PSAL Class B city championship team from two years ago. Last season, she missed most of the year and the playoffs with a torn MCL. The Eagles were upset in the first round by heavy underdog East Harlem. James returned five games into this year’s campaign and has been the unquestioned leader for a team with 11 freshmen and sophomores.
“I love her,” Lici said. “She is a team player. She gets us going. She pushes us, especially on defense. She is an amazing player.”
James was all those things and more Tuesday in No. 13 American Studies’ 70-58 upset win over No. 6 Fannie Lou Hamer in the PSAL Class B girls quarterfinals at Hunter College. She scored 34 points, grabbed 11 rebounds and dished out six assists. James had a hand in 14 of her team’s final points, including three assists, during a 22-6 run for the Eagles, who knocked off No. 3 Bayard Rustin in the second round.
“It means a lot to me,” James said. “For me to be back on the team it’s a whole new look. It is a young team and I experienced this already. I don’t really have the butterflies.”
Junior Laureta Lahu scored 16 points and Lici added 11 for Academy of American Studies (18-3). Shaquana Maxwell led Hamer with 19 points, bruising forward Aneesha Brown had 17 and Shaniqua Frazier added 14. Frazier fouled out with 6:00 left in the game with her team up, 50-48. Hamer coach Debbie Smith called Frazier the team’s heart and soul and a big reason for Brown’s success in the middle quarters.
“I think it was separation anxiety when she came out of the game,” Smith said. “I think it took her a couple of minutes that she didn’t have her in there and she had to step up herself.”
American Studies looked more like the team that took a 22-9 second quarter lead on the usually slow starting Panthers. It rebounded better and turned Hamer (17-4) turnovers into transition, where Lici and James excel. The freshman point guard has an eye for her highly touted senior.
“I hope the day I am a senior I can be just like her,” Lici said.
The Panthers had rallied in the second and third quarters behind the play of Frazier and Maxwell on both ends of the floor and the work of Brown under the boards. The guards hit back to back 3-pointers in the second quarter. Maxwell tied the score at 31 with a jumper early in the third and Frazier gave her team its first lead at 34-33 with 5:32 left in the quarter.
“We started getting slower,” American Studies coach Juan Faya said. “We started getting tired.”
The coach said he didn’t know what to expect when the year started. With such a young group he figured on eight or nine league wins, a .500 record and a playoff spot. Instead his squad went 15-3 and, while a much more inexperienced bunch then the title team from two years, stands two wins away from a return trip to Glens Falls for the New York State Federation tournament.
“This is special because it is a freshman and sophomore team really that is making this kind of run,” Faya said. “It’s really unexpected. …You want to win. You are already here. I think I sold them on that.”
Just like James, who said she is enjoying every game of this run, got her team to buy into what it takes to get it done. She should know.
“We really are a team now, before we were all individual players,” James said. “We didn’t know each other. For us to come together and be a unit is very special.”