Whitman Girls Basketball Tops Bellport, 71-55

Late in the third quarter of No. 5 first round game of the Suffolk Class AA girls basketball playoffs against No. 12 Bellport, star senior Alexandra Leftridge collapsed on the floor after a hard foul.

She had to be helped off the court by the team trainer, unable to walk on her right leg, which was experiencing calf cramps. The situation left Whitman head coach Dan Trebour, whose team was up by 13 at the time, in a precarious position.

"I knew she told me a couple possessions before that she was having cramps in her calf," he said. "I knew she didn’t twist an ankle or pull anything, so I wasn’t worried as far as her injuries were concerned. But I was definitely concerned about playing the entire fourth quarter without her."

Trebour previously watched Bellport cut his team's 22-point halftime lead in half over the entirety of the third quarter. Now, with his best player on the bench for an unknown period of time, Trebour needed someone to step up and keep his team's lead comfortable.

Enter sophomore Essence Casey.  Casey's first-half performance (2 points, 1 assist) under-whelmed her coach, who singled her out during halftime discussions. But with Leftridge on the bench to start the fourth, Casey steadied the Wildcat ship, scoring the team's first seven points of the quarter. By the time Leftridge re-entered, Whitman was back up 15, and the boost helped carry the Wildcats to a 71-55 victory.

"I got on her a little bit," Trebour said. "She responded so awesomely. She came out and carried us for a couple of possessions in a row."

"We definitely needed that," said Leftridge. "She had a rough first half. Criticism was in her face. Sometimes that's hard to get up from. She eventually sucked it up and muscled her way through. That's the key. You have to have a short-term memory."

Heroes: When Leftridge was in the game for Whitman, she was unquestionably the best player on the floor. She finished the day with 32 points, 21 of which came in the first half alone. She added 9 rebounds.

"She's so athletic, and she scores in so many ways," Trebour said. "She gets to the foul line, she hits the mid-range jumper, she gets to the rim. She does a lot of things, so she’s able to score a lot of points quickly."

Helping Leftridge was Whitman's crew of sophomores. Sophomore Rachel Perea picked up 14 of her 15 points in the first half, combining with Leftridge for 35 of Whitman's 44 first-half points. Also reaching double digits was sophomore guard Kelly Bilodeau, with 12 points. She added six rebounds and five assists.

Bellport's scoring was mostly concentrated among eighth-grader Ariella Guirantes and sophomore Asia Rountree, who scored 19 and 16 points, respectively. Bellport head coach Rodney O'Neal was particularly impressed with Guirantes, who has consistently performed well at such a young age.

"She's special," he said. "She's been special for the last two years. You give her an open look, she’s going to knock it down. She showed it today and we got momentum."

Turning Point: Casey's seven points at the start of the fourth gave Whitman both literal and mental support to hold the lead. But Whitman was in the driver's seat for the majority of the game because they dominated Bellport in every facet of the game's first half. They led by as many as 27 at one point. Bellport coach O'Neal pointed to his team's poor performance on the boards  (they were out-rebounded 12-5 in the first quarter by Whitman and 18-11 overall for the half) as well as problems on defense were the culprit.

"I went into the locker room [at halftime], and one of the things I told the girls is 'We're not rotating'," he said. "We made the first rotation, we made the second rotation, but the third rotation’s hurting us. Also, we weren’t hitting the glass. I told the girls in the locker room that we’re watching the ball, we’re not actually going out and rebounding. [At halftime], instead of sending four to the glass with one leaker, we started sending five to the glass. "

Coach O'Neal didn't think that Whitman's 1-2-2 full court press (which they ran for almost the entire first half) confounded them. "I actually thought we did a nice job handling the press," he said. "We moved the ball. We had a person in the middle of the court, and that person has to turn and look for that person going to the sideline."

But Whitman coach Trebour thought the Whitman press enabled them to set their tempo. "It enabled us to get a few steals, force them to take some quick shots," he said. "It created a tempo that benefitted us at the time. Fortunately, we were able to pull off to a nice lead."

Quotable: Despite a 22-point lead with under a minute to go in the first half, Trebour was disgusted after watching his team turn the ball over on two consecutive possessions without completing a single pass. He called timeout and screamed at his team loud enough to turn all heads in the arena in his direction, causing the arena to fall silent.

"I just felt that we weren’t being patient with the ball," he said. "They went from their zone defense into their man. I wanted to get some good motion and get the defense moving, get to the rim. Get them running off screens."

Trebour stopped short of calling his team's effort complacent, but he was concerned with the focus of his young team. "It was just, know the time, know the score, know the situations," he said. "I think that’s also a little bit of what happens when you have three sophomores on the court at one time. Sometimes the time and the score doesn’t mean as much to them as it means to us."

Bottom Line: Whitman got the win it was expected to win at home against Bellport, although they didn't give an effort from start to finish that satisfied their coach. They will need a more consistent effort in the next round if they want to move on.

Who's Next: Bellport's season is over following their loss to Whitman. They finish with a record of 12-7 overall (7-5 League IV).

Whitman's season is still going, and they face a challenge in their next game at Deer Park (5 p.m. Thursday), which was the only team to beat them in non-conference play this season (they were 10-2 in League II with two losses to Northport and are now 16-3 overall). Trebour remembers Deer Park from their last game, and also scouted them during their win over Connetquot earlier in the day. He said that the key to shutting down Deer Park would be to shut down their two top guards (Andrea Desvinges and Shayna Robinson).

" I know enough about them," he said. "It’s a matter of actually stopping them and scoring on them."

Team...........1.....2.....3.....4 -- F

Bellport.......6...16...20...13 -- 55

Whitman...18...26.....9...18 -- 71

Whit: Leftridge 21-11-32, Perea 14-1-15, Bilodeau 4-8-12, Casey 2-7-9, Guterman 3-0-3. Bell: Guirantes 5-14-19, Rountree 8-8-16, Smith 4-3-7, A. Garrison 3-0-3, Dutcher 0-2-2, L. Garrison 0-2-2, Paige 4, Jones 2.