Spartans hope to trend ‘North’

A new era begins for the Valley Stream North boys’ basketball team.

Former Lynbrook star Michael McVeigh takes over as the Spartans’ new coach after spending three seasons as Plainview’s JV bench boss. McVeigh, who also played at Cortland, is hoping to install a team-first mentality in which everyone on the floor gets involved in the play.

“I’m just trying to go there and instill that we play as a team,” he said. “We’re going to play team defense, we’re going to play together on offense and we’re going to be unselfish and share the ball. I’ve got a lot of kids that are working so hard for the first couple of weeks.”

McVeigh takes over a team that went 2-5 during the abbreviated winter season and graduated leading scorer Luke Sibblies (12.5 ppg). But McVeigh hopes the returning seniors can fill the void with their skills and leadership and lead the way against strong conference foes such as Hewlett, Manhasset and South Side.

“We have a good group of seniors that do a nice job of leading the team and making sure that everybody’s playing hard,” McVeigh observed.

Two of those seniors, guard Godwin Eyiuche and power forward Malcom Harrington, averaged over 11 points a game last season and will be looked upon to lead the offense as well as senior guard Giovanni Grey, who returns after missing the winter season. Eyiuche is a huge 3-point threat and Grey showed his offensive potential with eight double-digit point games in 2019-20, including 26 against North Shore.

The other spots have yet to be decided but should be among a pool of senior forwards such as Harpreet Singh, Brian Farrell and Aadil Alli. Also seeing time at guard will be senior Vaughn Candelario, a tenacious defender, and two other scorers in sophomore Dom Obukwelu and junior Aaron Rodriguez.