Undefeated Hillcrest Tops Bayside High School Girls

It came down to the final seconds, but Bayside High School girls varsity basketball team wasn’t able to get off a final shot and visiting Hillcrest was able to hold onto a nailbiting 34-33 win Thursday night.

Poor rebounding and shooting woes continue to plague the Lady Commodores, who are now 9-3 on the season and in third place in the Queens’ A East division, with the playoffs quickly approaching.

Hero:
Six-foot center Ruth Paul, who is averaging more than 18 points per game, gave another outstanding performance, putting up a double double – with a game-high 16 points and 11 rebounds in the Lady Hawks’ victory. Head coach Matthew Strong said Paul’s stellar effort helped to secure Hillcrest’s win.

The Turning Point:
With the contest tied 25-25 at the end of the third quarter, Bayside’s Joey Chan opened up the fourth with a three-pointer and then a basket that gave her squad a 30-25 lead with 6:56 remaining in the game.

However, the Lady Hawks went on a 9-0 run before Chan hit another bucket from behind the arc to pull the Lady Commodores to within a point with less than 35 ticks left on the clock. Unfortunately, that’s as close as they would get, as Hillcrest refused to fold in the end.

Bottom Line:
Bayside missed its share of opportunities and was out-rebounded by a considerable amount. The Lady Hawks grabbed a total of 40 boards.

Quotable:
While head coach Stephen Piorkowski noted that the Lady Commodores played tight defense, he also said that his team’s inability to sink open buckets continues to be their Achilles’ heel.

"They played good defense, solid defense," Piorkowski said. "They contained the ball, stopped the other team. But we didn’t shoot very well, shot terribly. We’re not a good shooting team. We’ve proved that game in and game out. We score only 30-40 points (a game). Good girls basketball teams score 60 points, and we’re not even close to that. We miss lay ups, we miss open shots—we shoot airballs. We give teams way too many opportunities to take advantage of us."

Who’s Next? 
Bayside travels to John Adams for a game on February 1 at 4:30 p.m.

 Box Score:

Teams

Q1

Q2

Q3

Q4

Final

Bayside

15

O8

05

08

33

Hillcrest

18

10

08

09

34