Pierson/Bridgehampton Falls To Port Jeff In Class C Girls Hoops County Final

Through the first three quarters of the Suffolk County Class C Championship, held at Riverhead High School on Saturday, the Pierson/Bridgehampton girls basketball team wasn’t necessarily playing as if it could be the last game for its senior players.

That all changed in the fourth quarter.

Trailing by 13 points to start the final frame against Port Jefferson, senior Lily Kot hit a three, then senior Nia Dawson followed with consecutive steals at mid-court that led to four points for Pierson. Kot then made a jump shot to cap a quick 9-0 run that pulled the Lady Whalers within four at 38-34 with 3:51 remaining.

Both teams traded free throws over the waning minutes of the game, but with 16 seconds remaining, senior Isabel Peters converted three of her four free throws to make it a two-point game at 43-41. Jocelyn Lebron hit one of two free throws for Port Jeff to push its lead to three, prompting Pierson head coach Kevin Barron to call a full timeout to put together a final play.

After a miscommunication with the officials, Pierson was not allowed the ball at halfcourt, and instead had to go the full length of the court to try and tie the game. Dawson got off a clean three from the top of the key but her shot bounced off the rim. Port Jeff grabbed the rebound with a second left and inexplicably called a timeout even though it had the game in hand. The Lady Royals, which lost to Pierson in last season’s county final, inbounded the ball and celebrated their first county title since 1927 in the 46-43 victory.

Just a full week prior to the county final, Port Jeff had clobbered Pierson, 64-30, in the regular-season finale. Port Jeff senior Courtney Lewis scored 39 points to surpass 2,000 career points in that game, but she was held in check this time around, scoring just 12 points before fouling out of the game with 1:17 remaining. Kot was shadowing Lewis for the majority of the game, making sure she didn’t get any open looks, and it seemed to have helped.

“There’s not many teams in our area that can do that, lose by 30 a week ago and come back and lose by three,” Barron said. “I told them to take it one possession at a time, they did that. They played unbelievable.

“I don’t know if they could have done much more today,” Barron continued. “I knew it was going to be a close game, and if it was a close game, that it could have gone either way because we’re very even with this team.”

The turnovers through the first three quarters are what ultimately did his team in, Barron said. He wanted to limit what he called “garbage points” for Port Jeff, and had his players done that, it’s very likely it would have been a different outcome.

As far as the situation at the end of the game, with the officials not allowing the Lady Whalers to take the final play from halfcourt, Barron explained that he had told one official that he was going to take a timeout and would like to advance the ball to halfcourt. The official said he didn’t hear Barron say he would like to advance the ball, even though it’s assumed in that situation that most coaches would do that. In most instances, Barron said, the official will ask if that’s what a coach would like to do. Barron wasn’t even given that courtesy.

“It is what it is. I was frustrated, but I’m not going to focus on that, that’s not the reason we lost,” he said. “We were still able to get a shot off.”

Dawson, a senior at Bridgehampton, scored a game-high 17 points in what wound up being the final game of her high school career. Kot finished with 15 points and Peters had six. The trio, along with fellow senior Lottie Evans, will graduate this spring, joining Alyssa Kneeland, who graduated early and wasn’t eligible to play this season.

“I’m going to miss them tremendously,” Barron said of his seniors. “They helped build what we’re trying to do here, which is build a program that’s dedicated and something for Pierson to be proud of. They helped do that along with a lot of our other basketball alumni.

“I want them coming back, I want them involved,” he added. “I’d do anything for those girls. As much as I’m hard on them, they know I care about them and they know I will always be there for them.”

A strong second half led the Pierson/Bridgehampton girls basketball team to a 60-49 victory over Southold/Greenport in the Suffolk County Class C outbracket playoff game on Thursday, February 16.

For much of the first half, it looked questionable whether or not Pierson, which had defeated Southold/Greenport twice already this season, would even advance. After taking an eight-point lead early in the first quarter, the Lady Whalers’ offense went stagnant and didn’t score another basket until sophomore Katie Kneeland hit a jump shot with 4:59 remaining in the second quarter to tie the game at 14-14.

From that point on the teams went back and forth for the rest of the first half. Southold/Greenport took a 23-20 lead into the locker room at halftime.

Things seemed to be different from the start of the third quarter. Two minutes into the half, Dawson found a wide-open Kneeland underneath the basket, and her easy layup regained the lead for the Lady Whalers at 28-26. Pierson never lost the lead again from that point on.

Dawson finished with a game-high 25 points, Kneeland scored 11 points and Peters and Kot chipped in with eight points each. Southold/Greenport was led by its 1,000-career point scorer Madison Tabor, who scored 20 points. Angelica Klavas scored 14 for the Lady Settlers.

The difference between the first and second halves for his team, Barron said, was that it started setting up its offense wider on the court, which created a few holes in Southold/Greenport’s aggressive man-to-man defense.

“We noticed in the first half that their girls were running narrow down the court, and it was hard for Nia to drive,” Barron explained. “She was still getting fouled, but I felt like she was getting a lot more wide-open looks in the second half. She was able to pull up and take a couple of those jump shots, she would pass to the corner. That’s a result of the girls playing wide.”