Sports

Poly falls short to LuHi in battle of private powerhouses

It wasn’t like Poly Prep got blown out of the water. But team captains Cherkira Lashley and Lily Donahue thought it appropriate to call a team meeting after a 52-39 loss to Long Island Lutheran in non-league girls basketball Monday in Bay Ridge.

“We beat ourselves up and underestimated ourselves,” Lashley said. “The negative emotion is exactly why we lost.”

Poly (8-1) actually led 26-22 after a big Kerri Saputo 3-pointer with 6:41 left in the third quarter. But LuHi (9-4) turned up its fullcourt pressure and Poly turned the ball over eight straight times without even getting a shot off. The Blue Devils scored just one more field goal in the third and were outscored, 15-3 to finish the period.

“I told the girls, ‘If I was you, I’d be disappointed,’” Poly coach Mike Junsch said. “Because you could have beat this team. They did not beat us today. We beat ourselves. We didn’t run our offense. We didn’t reverse the ball.”

Even after that awful stretch, the Devils were very much in the game. A putback by Donahue and two free throws by Lashley got Poly Prep within 38-33 with 6:12 left. But then exactly seven minutes passed without another field goal and the game slipped away. LuHi’s Christina Raiti drained a huge 3-pointer with 5:24 left that put the Crusaders up 42-33.

“There’s no doubt in my mind that if we played the fourth quarter the way we played the rest of the game, we would have won that game,” Saputo said.

Poly controlled the tempo in the first half, got the ball down to the 6-foot-4 Donahue early and went into the break leading 21-19. The Blue Devils came in as certifiable underdogs. LuHi has emerged as one of the best teams on Long Island under coach Rich Slater.

“We did try to speed stuff up as much as we could and I think it showed,” Slater said.

Katie Friel had 11 points, Lashley had eight and Saputo added seven for Poly. Raiti and Queens native Lauren (Boogie) Brozoski each had 12 for Long Island Lutheran and Paige Kriftcher added nine.

The two squads are arguably the best private school teams in the area. Long Island Lutheran has been to the New York State Federation Class B tournament two straight years, but only had a challenger as the NYSAISAA representative last year when Dalton classified itself as a ‘B.’ Poly classified as a ‘C’ earlier this month and will be one of the favorites, along with Staten Island Academy, in that version of the NYSAISAA tournament, whose winner doesn’t go upstate.

“A lot of his kids play spring sports,” Slater said. “It’s unfortunate, because they’re good. They could represent. They’re well coached. You saw the way they run their stuff.”

There will not be a rematch between the two teams and LuHi will go upstate automatically. Poly, for the time being, is focused on winning the Ivy Prep League title for a second straight year. That’s why the captains called the players-only meeting.

“I told them this is the best team we’re gonna play and we stayed with them basically the whole game,” Lashley said, “so we should beat every single team in the league.”

mraimondi@nypost.com