Long Beach tops Elmont

A dominant first half performance helped the Long Beach girls’ basketball team defeat Conference AA-III rival Elmont in convincing fashion last Friday. The Lady Marines cruised to a 44-30 victory, as they picked up their fourth win in their last five games.

Long Beach was able to get off to a fast start on offense, and keep the crowd quiet early on the road. Senior point guard Mary McDonagh was effective as the team’s floor general, as the Marines came out early on with crisp ball movement, and sharp perimeter shooting. 

“They have a pretty intense crowd here,” Long Beach head coach Kristin Ciccone said. “We wanted to come here and play our game, and not go down to their game.”

Long Beach held a six-point lead after the first, but it was not until the second quarter that the visitors started to pull away. Elmont struggled mightily on the offensive end in the second, and as a result was outscored 12-1 in the quarter. 

Going into halftime the Lady Spartans found themselves trailing 30-13. Long Beach had four three pointers in the first half, and three from McDonagh. 

Elmont would come out stronger in the second half, outscoring the Lady Marines by a 17-14 margin, but never was able to draw back within single digits.  

McDonagh was not the only Long Beach player finding success from the outside, as her senior teammate Shauna Spruiell also made a pair of three pointers in the game.  With Elmont having to worry about the deep ball, the Lady Marines were also able to find offense on the inside as a result.

“If they didn’t hit those threes, then the defense doesn’t come out, and we can’t dump it down inside to Perri (Steiner) and Lena (Moriarty),” Ciccone said. 

Steiner finished with a game high 14 points, and Moriarty also had six points. Steiner was particularly impressive on the boards, and came up with key second chance points for her team.

Junior Arielle Pierre led the Lady Spartans in scoring with nine points. Elmont also got solid offensive contributions from Noelle Dixon, who had seven points, and Monique Joseph, who finished with six.

The loss drops Elmont head coach Tom Magano’s squad to 5-6 overall and 2-4 in conference play. The team got off to a hot start this season, but has hit a recent rough patch, losing four in a row. “We’re still working, and trying to get better,” Magano said. “We like to take it one at a time.”

As for Long Beach, it improved to 7-3 on the season, and 3-2 in conference games. “Our senior leadership has done a lot for us, and we have good chemistry from playing together all this time,” McDonagh said. McDonagh is one of five seniors on the team. 

The teams will meet again Feb. 7 in Long Beach, in what will likely be a critical game in the playoff race.