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Partly Cloudy Tough ending for Lady Falcons
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Junior Ugo Nwaigwe led Valley Stream South in scoring, rebounding and blocked shots.
Andrew Vardakis/Herald
Valley Stream South made considerable progress in the second half of the basketball season, but a rough second half in last Friday’s finale against Conference ABC-IV rival Mineola cost the visiting Lady Falcons a game they appeared destined to win until late in the fourth quarter.
Heather Gessner’s three-point play with 12.5 seconds remaining gave the Lady Mustangs a 30-27 victory and allowed them to stay a game ahead of both Sewanhaka and Jericho in the race for the conference title. Mineola trailed by 11 points at halftime but managed to hold South (4-8 in conference play, 7-10 overall) to three points over the final 16 minutes, including none in the final quarter.
“We treated this as our playoff game,” Lady Falcons coach Dan Drumm said. “It’s disappointing because we played so well in the first half. We ran the same sets in the second half, but we couldn’t get any shots to fall. We missed a layup on our first possession of the third quarter and everything seemed to snowball from there.”
Gessner had 13 points to lead Mineola’s offense and Erin Etherson swatted away 11 shots to lead the defense. Senior Vania St. Louis paced South with 13 points and junior Ugo Nwaigwe chipped in seven points, seven rebounds and five blocks.
“Other coaches were concerned about playing us the second time around,” Drumm said. “We almost played spoiler again after beating Jericho last week. It would have been great to win four of the last five, but three of five isn’t bad.”
Drumm said the Lady Falcons started to realize their potential after knocking off Valley Stream Central and Plainview-JFK — a pair of Class AA teams — in back-to-back games to close December and open January. They turned away Central, 48-34, behind Nwaigwe’s 15 points and 16 rebounds, and edged Plainview, 48-47, on a St. Louis layup with five seconds to go. “Those wins gave the girls confidence,” he said.
The late-season surge against conference foes began Jan. 20 with a 35-34 overtime home win over Valley Stream North. South scored just two points in the fourth quarter but managed six in overtime, including a pair of Nwaigwe free throws with 4.4 seconds left. “It was important to the girls to split with North,” Drumm said. “We had a chance to beat them the first time, but they got us by a basket.”
The Lady Falcons also beat Jericho and Hewlett in January. Nwaigwe totaled 31 points in the victories and is expected to lead the way next season along with fellow junior Catherine Powell and sophomores Angela Aragona and Christie DeMarco. Starters St. Louis, Tricia Zarro and Nicole Salem are set to graduate along with Sagine Colagene, the first player off the bench in most games.
Nwaigwe, a 6-2 power forward, not only led the team in scoring at 12.5 points per game, she also proved a strong defensive presence in the paint with 15 rebounds and seven blocks per outing. “She wants to play at the next level and has the size and talent to do so,” Drumm said.
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