Hills West Boys Basketball Triumphs Over Central Islip

On Thursday afternoon, the boys basketball team defeated Central Islip in the Suffolk Class AA quarterfinals.  After a slow and struggling first half, Hills West came together and left the court victorious, beating Central Islip by 15 points.  Hills West now enters the semifinals, and will face William Floyd at Stony Brook on Tuesday.

The first quarter opened up to an intense zone defense on both teams.  About two minuets into the game, Hills West star player Tavon Sledge had one of his first shots blocked with immense force.  Central Islip set out to give Hills West a bigger challenge than their game against ESM last week.  For the majority of the game, Sledge was guarded by Central Islip's star player, Augustus Reginald.

With most of their points off offensive rebounds, Central Islip came out on top in the first quarter, 13-7.  Going into the second, Hills West started to gain momentum and take advantage of every mistake Central Islip made, including an embarrassing missed dunk.  Emile Blackman for Hills West took the ball into the paint multiple times, and dunked the first shot of the game.  

At the 4:00 mark, the score was 25-21 Central Islip; at 3:00, it was 26-23.  Hills West stole the ball and Blackman landed a crowd-pleasing one-handed dunk, finally bringing them on top, 26-25.

Unfortunately they fell behind one point going into halftime, 30-29.  While the score on the board was not in their favor, it was apparent their teamwork and energy was alive and well.  The third quarter started badly for Hills West, though, finding them down 8 points after the first minute.  However, they decided enough was enough, and halfway through the quarter, they were on top 41-40.  The crowd for Hills West then started chanting: "Check the scoreboard!"

At the 2:00 mark, Hills West was up 11 points.  Central Islip made a 3-point shot in the final minute, but it wasn't enough.  Blackman scored 4 points in the final seconds remaining, going into the fourth quarter with a 10-point lead, 55-44.

In the fourth quarter, Sledge was taken out in the beginning, and Central Islip started their double team defense again.  After one minute, Sledge was put back in, and he got his revenge for his first blocked shot by catapulting into the air and blocking one of Central Islips shots.  Hills West held onto their lead over Central Islip for the remainder of the quarter.  

At the 1:00 mark, Hills West was still up by 10 points.  It became apparent that the game was in their hands, and Sledge finished his performance with a one-handed dunk, hanging onto the rim as the crowd cheered.  They ran the clock down with the seconds that remained, ending the game 71-56.

Sledge scored a team-high 31 points, followed by Blackman with 28.  Hills West head coach, Bill Mitaritonna, shared his thoughts on the game:  "We had a great effort in the second half. Central Islip is a great team.  They played much harder defense than what we played last week.  We were giving them the ball in the first half, but thankfully we got the points we needed on the scoreboard."