Rose Dunn was thinking of anything she could to distract Mayana LeGrande from her pain.
“I think she was upset in the first half,” the Staten Island Academy girls basketball coach said. “I just told her to relax and have fun and make the best of it. I told her to talk on defense because then you forget that you’re nervous.”
Hours earlier the senior center was getting off a bus from Philadelphia. There she and her family were mourning the death of her father Timothy, who had Alzheimer’s and multiple sclerosis, last Thursday. LeGrande hadn’t practiced at all during the week and struggled along with her team before the break.
“In the first half I was still kind of jittery,” the unsigned LeGrande said. “I haven’t played basketball in a week because my mind has been everywhere. … I just have to get over it and play my game.”
That’s exactly what she did in the third quarter.
LeGrande scored 16 of her 19 points in the frame and collected 18 rebounds to help the Tigers to 57-51 win over visiting Tottenville in a non-league game Thursday. Bethany Claps scored 17 points and help seal the win after LeGrande fouled out in the fourth. Casey Bray added 11 points. Victoria McFarland and Cheryl Lopez each had 19 points for Tottenville.
“When I have friends and family around me I am pretty tough,” said LeGrande, who had numerous college coaches watching her in the stands. “It’s a good support group.”
Added Claps: “She is a strong person and it showed today.”
Her team found itself down 30-24 at halftime as Lopez scored seven points during a 13-0 second quarter to help the Pirates (21-3), the No. 4 seed in the PSAL Class A playoffs, build a 28-16 lead with 2:22 left before the break. LeGrande would dominate the glass and score eight straight points to start a 15-3 run over the third and fourth quarters. It put the Tigers (17-6) up 44-41 after three thanks to a 3-pointer from Erin Gibbons and 48-41 with 5:30 to play in the fourth.
“It’s irreplaceable her rebounding,” Dunn said of LeGrande.
It was Claps that helped fend off Tottenville in the fourth. She scored seven points in the frame. Claps connected on a little baby hook in the lane with 2:00 left to put SIA, whose press was effective in the second half, up 56-49.
“This is great for our reputation as a school,” said Claps, who was celebrating her birthday. “For us to beat them is great for our reputation on the Island.”
LeGrande will leave Staten Island, where her brothers Shemiah and Dominick LeGrande were football stars at Curtis, and head back to Philadelphia, where her father was an All-City football player at West Philadelphia HS before playing at Howard. Staten Island Academy moved their game against Wardlaw-Hartridge (N.J.) from Friday to Monday so LeGrande could attend her father’s funeral today and not miss her Senior Night.
“You always miss your dad,” LeGrande said. “But you got to be strong for your family.”