Mariners Take Over In Second Half To Defeat Kings Park for Small Schools Championship

Resiliency is a cornerstone of any good team, but because the Southampton boys basketball team has had the lead in the large majority of its games this season, the team hasn’t had to demonstrate that trait. Until now.

Facing Suffolk County Class A Champion Kings Park in the Small Schools Championship of the Section XI Tournament on Tuesday night at Longwood High School, the Mariners knew they were going to face adversity on the court. They tackled it head-on and proved just how resilient they can be.

After trailing all of the first half, Southampton, as the team has been known to do this season, exploded in the third quarter to take the game over and maintained its lead, resulting in a 58-49 victory, and with it their first Small Schools title since 2017. That earlier title came as Class A school, though. Tuesday night’s victory was the Mariners’ first Small Schools title as a ‘B’ school since 2015, when they defeated ‘A’ champ Bayport/Blue Point.

But there was more on the line than just a title. Kings Park defeated Southampton in last year’s Small Schools Championship, and then won again when the two teams met in the season opener in December. Those defeats certainly weren’t lost on the coaches or players.

“It means a lot,” to win, Southampton senior Derek Reed, who scored a team-high 21 points, said after the game. “Last year, it hurt. This year, we lost the first game. We weren’t really ourselves. I knew it was going to be a better battle now. Came out with the W. Had a game plan and we executed it.

“Very good revenge game,” added sophomore Naevon Williams, who scored 10 of his 18 points in the fourth quarter. “We have to keep on moving forward.”

Southampton will now face Class AA Champion Brentwood in the overall Section XI Championship this Saturday, March 4, at Stony Brook University at 2:30 p.m. And, of course, the Mariners still have their Long Island Championship to play this upcoming Wednesday, March 8, at Hofstra University at 6 p.m. against either Carle Place or Malverne.

It was obvious afterward how much Tuesday night’s victory meant to longtime Southampton head coach Herm Lamison.

“I’m just so, so proud of my boys … because of the resiliency,” he said. “We lost to Kings Park the first game of the season, and that really had been bothering us. Trying to set our schedule up for a moment like this and this is what happened. [Kings Park] is a great team, they beat us early, we didn’t play well. But tonight we did what we needed to do.”

Lamison said he “worked the whole entire system” on Tuesday night and gave Kings Park a much different look than when the two teams played each other at the onset of this season. And that was clear from the start when sophomore Nikai Pierson got his first start of the season and drew the tough task of covering one of the best players in the county in Kings Park senior Matthew Garside. When Pierson wasn’t covering Garside, sophomore Tyrese Reddick and junior Tyler Blake took over. And to all of their credit, they did well in limiting clear looks to the basket, but Garside (game-high 23 points) still proved difficult to stop. And when he wasn’t making baskets, he was finding his open teammates close to the basket.

That led to Kings Park leading, 24-16, about halfway through the second quarter, but to the Mariners’ credit, they started to fight back. Reed scored back-to-back baskets in the final 1:30 of the first half and, although it was visibly being outplayed, Southampton only trailed Kings Park, 25-22, at halftime and continued that momentum into the second half.

Less than a minute into the third quarter, sophomore Tyson “Splash” Reddick made his first three to tie the game at 25-25, then a steal by Williams led to a layup for Reed, giving the Mariners their first lead of the game. Pierson then increased the lead to 31-27 when they followed up on a miss, and from that point on, Southampton never trailed again.

It was very much a team victory on Tuesday for the Mariners. After not playing much in the first half, freshman Alex Franklin rebounded nicely, scoring all eight of his points in the second half and providing some stout defense as well. Reed provided his usual efforts on both sides of the ball and his three at the end of the third quarter gave Southampton a commanding 42-34 lead heading into the fourth.

Williams came out in the fourth quarter and played as if he wasn’t going to let Kings Park back in the game all by himself. His shot a minute in extended Southampton’s lead to double digits, and he never missed the rest of the game, scoring at will.

Reed said there were a lot of key players on the court for his team on Tuesday night, not just himself.

“Naevon is a great teammate. He’s so young, he doesn’t even understand how good he is right now,” he said. “Next two years are going to be his. It’s going to be real rough for other teams. Contain him? He’s a big guard and he’s only going to keep growing.

“But for this game, exactly this game, Nikai and Tyrese, most of the credit goes to them,” he said. “They busted their butts in guarding Garside. It’s a lot to guard him. I guarded him the first game, it didn’t go too well. A lot of credit should go to them.”

Southampton will certainly have its work cut out for itself in facing a Brentwood team coming off a lopsided victory over Commack in its county championship. History bodes well for the Mariners if they can somehow find a way to win; according to longislandbasketball.com, seven of the last eight small schools to win the overall county championship have gone on to win their respective state title.

Lamison feels like there is something else on the line, as well, and that his team will be looking for what would be its 12th straight victory.

“I don’t feel like we’ve gotten the respect that we deserve all season long,” he said. “I don’t feel like we’ve been respected as a basketball program this year at all, especially from the teams up west.”