The Pierson (Sag Harbor) High School girls basketball team was looking to upset Westhampton Beach in the county small schools championship game Saturday, but the fact that Gigi Dryden, the Whalers’ 6-foot-1-inch center, was able to play only five minutes hurt.
Thus the Hurricanes, with Belle Smith, who was to set an all-time Westhampton Beach scoring mark — for boys and for girls — that night, and Layla Mendoza, the center, who finished with 23 points (Smith tallied 20), prevailed 49-34.
Even with Dryden out, “it was a very close game until the end,” Woody Kneeland, Pierson’s coach, said Tuesday morning.
Dryden, who with her 18 points and 12 rebounds led the Whalers to a 47-32 win over Port Jefferson in the county B-C game on Feb. 25, was tagged with two fouls within the first four minutes of play, and sat for the remainder of the first half.
“In the first couple minutes of the third quarter,” Kneeland said, “she collided with our point guard, Chastin Giles, and hit her head. She didn’t play the rest of the way.”
The Hurricanes led by 8 points entering the fourth quarter, but extended that lead to 15 by game’s end. Giles was Pierson’s high-scorer, with 12, including two 3-pointers.
The decision to keep Dryden out of the fray following the collision was owing in part to the fact that she had had a concussion in the past. Safety was the primary concern, said Kneeland, who added that she would play in the Long Island Class C championship game with East Rockaway at Newfield High School in Selden Monday at 4:30 p.m.
“That’s the knockout game,” the coach said. Should Pierson win, it would play the Section 1-1X winner at St. Joseph’s College in Patchogue on Sunday, March 15, to determine which team will advance to the Final Four at Hudson Valley Community College in Troy over the March 20-22 weekend.
Kneeland said he’s seen East Rockaway play, and while “they’re aggressive, we’re taller and faster.”
At a practice in Pierson’s gym Friday, the coach said he thought this year’s edition was “more athletic” than last year’s team, which was ousted 55-26 by Millbrook in the regional final, obviating a trip to the Final Four.
Last year’s team, coached by Kevin Barron, had on it 10 seniors, though Kneeland’s jayvee went undefeated, and most of them are now on the varsity.
Port Jefferson had beaten Pierson twice during the regular season, so the B-C win was particularly sweet. Kneeland had come up with a game plan designed to limit the Royals’ shots by working the clock, and it worked.
Offensively, he said, “we used the entire clock — if there was no layup, we’d work the ball back out and pass it around. Defensively, we showed them a press, not a super-aggressive press, but one that would slow them down so they’d be late getting into their offense.”
“The whole idea was to keep our turnovers down — we had 12, which is about average — to control the ball, and limit their touches. Port Jefferson had 14 points in the entire first half and 18 in the second, so I guess the game plan worked.”
Kneeland and Eric Bramoff, Pierson’s athletic director, who also was at the practice session, agreed that Pierson’s girls were peaking at the right time. “Coming together the way they have, gaining that confidence, takes time to develop,” Kneeland said, adding that of his charges, while they were indeed athletic, only one, Giles, played basketball the year round. The others, he said, also played other sports, such as field hockey and softball, which Kneeland also coaches.
Softball season is fast approaching, but first things first.