Napier Reaches Career Milestone In Small Schools Championship Loss To Kings Park

A 54-45 loss to Kings Park in the Small Schools Championship at Sachem East High School on Friday night was both a reason to celebrate and a time to reflect for the Southampton boys basketball team.

A reason to celebrate because one of its senior co-captains, LeBron Napier, scored his 1,000th career point — but it came in a loss, something the Mariners haven’t experienced since before the calendar turned to 2022.

Despite their loss to undefeated Kings Park, the Mariners were still alive in the state tournament, having played Friends Academy on Wednesday night for the Long Island Championship. That game occurred too late for results to appear in this week’s edition, but can be found at 27east.com and in next week’s edition.

Napier scored his 1,000th point on the back end of a pair of made free throws with 20.8 seconds remaining in the third quarter of Friday’s game. The game was stopped for a brief moment to recognize the milestone, which brought the standing-room only crowd to its feet and Napier took a couple of photos with his head coach, Herm Lamison.

Following the game, Lamison said what made Napier’s milestone even more impressive was the fact that he accomplished it in less games than any other player in school history, making him the quickest to score 1,000. Napier missed about eight games as a freshman after breaking his wrist, and then last season, like most players, he only played six games in the pandemic-shortened schedule.

Shaundell Fishburne was the last full-time Southampton boy to score 1,000 career points, having done so in January 2014. Micah Snowden also achieved the feat and spent the bulk of his playing time at Southampton before transferring to Center Moriches, which is where he reached the milestone in 2019.

“LeBron is a different case,” Lamison explained. “He probably would have been the all-time leading scorer, but you have to take into consideration as a freshman he missed six or eight games because he broke his wrist. Then you take into consideration only six games with COVID last year. So if you add those games to what he was averaging, and what he could have potentially averaged, he’s actually the quickest player with the least amount of games to reach a thousand.

“I’m happy for him, very happy for him,” he added. “He’s a great kid. He really works hard, puts a lot of time in the gym. I think we got a couple more in the pipeline between Derek [Reed] and Naevon [Jenkins]. Those kids have a lot of potential to do the same thing.”

Napier, who was down about the loss, was surprised to hear that he was the quickest in school history to the milestone. Even when he started to get regular playing time as a freshman, he said scoring wasn’t at the top of his list. In fact, he didn’t feel confident as a consistent scorer until last year during the abbreviated season.

“And, as this year went on, I just went for it,” he said. “It feels great to know that I was the fastest and to do it through all of those obstacles.”

Napier’s free throw that clinched the milestone also tied the game, 34-34, but a quick basket with three seconds remaining in the third by Kings Park senior Jon Borkowski gave the Kingsmen the lead heading into the final frame. Not even 10 seconds into the fourth, Southampton picked up its seventh foul, putting Kings Park into the one-and-one bonus.

With 2:08 remaining in the game, Borkowski put up a right-handed floater in the lane that was good, giving the Kingsmen a 48-43 lead, the biggest they had since the opening minutes of the game, eventually leading to their 23rd consecutive victory this season. It was Southampton’s first loss since December 29 at home to Riverhead.

“Last two minutes of the game we missed opportunities,” Lamison said. “We were right there. The game was in the balance for anybody to win … I’ve been telling the kids all year long, it’s the little things that if we don’t do, at some point they’re going to get us, and tonight they got us. When you’re playing a really, really good team, they don’t make those mistakes. Whether it’s a loose ball or making offensive rebounds, a layup, whatever it is, we’ve got to make the little things to get us that extra edge.”

While Kings Park doesn’t have that standout number one player — at least it didn’t on Friday night — Napier, who tied Borkowski with a game-high 16 points, said what makes the Kingsmen tough is that they are solid throughout their lineup and each player knows their role. Lamison thought his team did a very good job defensively, particularly in limiting junior Matthew Garside, whom he said averaged five made three-pointers per game coming in, but only scored four points.

Had Southampton beaten Kings Park on Friday, it would have had to play Smithtown East for the overall county title on Monday, then played Friends Academy on Wednesday. Lamison said on Friday night it remains to be seen if Friday’s loss was possibly a blessing for his team, giving it an extra day of rest.

“I don’t consider losing a blessing. But if it’s going to be a blessing, I’ll take it. If we can get Friends on Wednesday, then it’s a blessing,” he said. “End of the day, we’re going to start preparing for Friends tomorrow. Hopefully we can go out and execute a little bit better than we executed today.”