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After finishing last season 9-1 the team was given the Sportsmanship Award banner, which only further motivated the team this season.
OLH eighth-grader Maxwell Notley defends against a St. John Paul II player.
Our Lady of the Hamptons eighth graders, from left, Michael Campbell, Maxwell Notley and James Paccasassi.
The Our Lady of the Hamptons boys basketball season finished a perfect 10-0 season last week. The team included, top row, from left; head coach Brian Spellman, eighth-graders Michael Campbell, Maxwell Notley, James Paccassasi; middle row, from left, seventh-graders Kai Gomolka, Ignatius Fulweiler, Thomas Sandoval, Jeremy Trelles, Emil Zaleski and Lucas Carbalall; and kneeling, from left; sixth-graders Caius Pasignajen-Pormentilla, Leo Spellman, Sebastian Herra-Gomez, Jadyn Phillips and Gerard Murphy.
Last season, the Our Lady of the Hamptons boys basketball team was staring down at a possible perfect undefeated season, only to lose by a single point on a last ditch heave at the buzzer.
For their efforts, and how they ultimately took that tough-luck loss with class, the team was given the Catholic Middle School Athletic Association Sportsmanship banner. While head coach Brian Spellman appreciated that, it wasn’t necessarily the banner he, or his players for that matter, really wanted.
“That sportsmanship banner, it was almost like it mocked me all season,” he said. “But my kids were so good about [the loss]. No one was making excuses, nobody said, ‘Oh, we could have made our free throws,’ or anything like that. So many other people would have placed blame elsewhere, and I think that’s why they gave us the sportsmanship award.”
But, man, that sportsmanship banner sat up in the rafters in the OLH gym just staring down at Spellman and his players. Redemption was needed, and that’s exactly what they got.
The OLH boys, nearly a brand new squad this season, Spellman said, due to a few players graduating and others transferring elsewhere, capped off a perfect 10-0 campaign when it defeated St. Patrick’s School of Bay Shore, 39-30, on March 7. St. Patrick’s had come into that game with one loss, so a loss by OLH would have evened both teams up at 9-1. Previous to that game, OLH needed to defeat St. John Paul II, which had also been undefeated, and it came through with a 34-27 victory in that game.
Spellman said what was surprising about this team was that, as a middle school team that could have been mostly eighth-graders, his team only had three. The majority of the team was sixth- and seventh-graders.
“It was such a good group of kids. They played like a team, got together and just refused to lose,” he said. “It was a pretty amazing feat.”
The team included eighth-graders Michael Campbell, Maxwell Notley and James Paccassasi, seventh-graders Lucas Carbalall, Ignatius Fulweiler, Kai Gomolka, Thomas Sandoval, Jeremy Trelles and Emil Zaleski and sixth-graders Sebastian Herra-Gomez, Gerard Murphy, Caius Pasignajen-Pormentilla, Jadyn Phillips and Leo Spellman. Brian Spellman Jr., who was on last year’s team but graduated and played junior varsity for Hampton Bays this past season, returned to see things through an assistant coach with his dad.
