The importance of the game began to sink in again for Francis Lewis as it went into the fourth quarter ahead by just a point. It was Senior Night, for which players made flyers to place around the school, and a win would all but clinch a No. 2 seed in the PSAL city playoffs.
“I was a little scared when the energy went down,” Iona-bond senior Sabrina Jeridore said. “I was like, ‘Guys we got to pick it up.’”
She said her team came out so strong at the start that it was tired in the middle portion of the contest. Coach Steve Tsai said it was not just his usually vocal center, but the rest of the team, but especially seniors Ayana Duncanson and Shenita Urquhart. They backed up their talk with a 10-1 run to start the fourth that led to an eventual 52-40 win over visiting Midwood in PSAL Class AA girls basketball Friday.
Jeridore scored 10 points, grabbed 10 rebounds and blocked four shots for the Patriots (18-3, 14-0 Queens AA). Jasmine Davis had14 points, including four 3-pointers. Tatiana Wilson had 13 points and Duncanson added eight. Gisell Peguero and Jewel Tunstull each led Midwood with 10 points and Francess Henry added nine on three 3-pointers.
“I knew I had to shoot it today, because this game was too important,” said Davis, who has been encouraged to me more aggressive. “We knew we had to win it. It was too close not to.”
The sophomore scored the first five points of the run and had a hand in eight of the 10 points. She called for the ball from Urquhart in the left corner before burying a 3-pointer. Duncanson hit an off-balance shot from the right block over Beranda Felder to give Francis Lewis a 41-35 lead with 4:40 left in the game.
“That one hurt,” Midwood coach Artie LaGreca said.
That is because the shooting of Peguero in the second quarter and Henry in the third put the Hornets in position to overtake the Patriots. A Henry 3-pointer from the left side and a Monet Keane Dawes layup gave the Hornets, who will likely be a No. 6 or No. 7 seed in the ‘AA’ playoffs, their only lead of the game, 29-28, with 1:31 remaining in the third.
Midwood (14-11, 10-4 Brooklyn AA Group 1), though, turned the ball over too many times, especially in transition where it failed to turn its takeaways into points.
“We weren’t finishing,” Peguero said. “We had a couple of turnovers that were crucial.”
Francis Lewis likely could have been the one trying to crawl back, with its energy swooning, had it not been for Jeridore, who recently needed a few days to clear her head because of family issues and frustration with how the team had been playing. She scored six points in the third quarter, attacked the glass and made life difficult for Tunstull, Midwood’s Northeastern-bound cener. She blocked the Hornets center from behind in transition late in the fourth.
“She finds a second wind almost,” Tsai said. “Then she kind of carried us through.”
So did his team.