Girls Hoops Notebook: Lady Horsemen Making Up For Lost Time As Playoffs Near

Sleepy Hollow, a program once lodged in the Section I dungeon with a laundry-list of other perennial have-nots has since been resuscitated.

After a long and grueling era of being an also-ran, Sleepy Hollow suddenly found themselves in the realm of Section 1 relevance a few years ago, quelling a drought that dated back to 1994.

With a secure playoff spot in a scalding Class A, where it is actually crowded at the top, Sleepy will soon learn their seed and opponent in what has all the central components to be a wild, topsy-turvy tournament. Evenly-matched teams and a slew of teams that could beat each other on any given night adds to flair to the anticipated playoffs. 

Rodney Headley's Peekskill team, which lost to star forward Tori Jarosz (who now plays for Vanderbilt) and Lakeland in last year's Section I championship at the County Center, has likely already been penned in as the favorite.  

Nobody is certain where Sleepy Hollow will fall in the Sectional seedings, but the Headless Horsemen beat who they were supposed to beat in a league schedule that rendered them feast-or-famine. It has been a Class A filled with haves and have-nots, and the Horsemen have found themselves somewhere in the middle of the pack climbing their way to the upper-echelon.

"There are probably 10-plus teams that I could name, just off the top of my head that have 11 wins or more," explained Hollow head coach Nick Romeo, now in his fifth year at the helm.

"Class A is just stacked this year."

Sleepy busted out of the gate in sizzling fashion, winning five of their first seven. The only team that delivered sizable victories since then were Ossining (featuring freshly-minted 1,000-point scorer in sophomore standout Saniya Chong), a Class AA school, and Briarcliff (Class B).

The Horsemen beat Croton twice, Westlake twice, and Pleasantville twice, en route to an 11-5 season with two games remaining.

How Sleepy Hollow ends in the tournament remains to be seen, but this youth-laden Hollow team finds itself on the doorstep of one of the most memorable seasons since 1994.