Pierson Boys Basketball Team's Late Push Fuels Comeback Victory Over Carle Place Clinching First Long Island Championship In 44 Years

A good mark of a championship team is not only winning the winnable games, but how it reacts when it faces adversity and whether it is able to pull through in tough situations.

The Pierson boys basketball team has now proven it has that championship pedigree.

Facing a double-digit deficit to Carle Place midway through the third quarter of the Long Island Class C Championship at Centereach High School on March 9, the Whalers stormed back to take the lead in the fourth quarter and went on to defeat the Frogs, 55-51, to win their first Long Island title since 1978.

Pierson defeated Alexander Hamilton, 65-63, in the Regional Final at Yorktown High School on Sunday to advance to this weekend’s New York State Final Four (see separate story).

“We’ve been down in plenty of games, whether it’s been this year or years past,” Pierson head coach Will Fujita explained after the win. “Fortunately, these guys reflected on what it’s like to be down, and what it’s like to lose being down, and also what it’s like to take a lead and win a game. I think that the seniors did a great job of being leaders on the floor. I think all the underclassmen did a fantastic job today stepping up and doing their job.”

The Whalers had some glaring issues they needed to correct after being down, 28-22, at halftime. They were being outrebounded by Carle Place, but even more surprising was the fact that the they shot 6 for 16 from the free throw line. Improving in both aspects, at least on the onset of the second half, proved to be difficult, as the Frogs came out still firing on all cylinders.

Rocco Zannino, a sharpshooting senior guard for Carle Place, continued his torrid attack in the third quarter. After hitting a trio of threes in the first half and leading all scorers in the first half with 13 points, he continued to be a thorn in the Whalers’ side after nailing a pair of threes. Then senior James McKeough scored on a putback to give Carle Place a 38-28 lead, forcing Fujita to call a timeout and regroup with 4:20 remaining in the third.

Coming out of that break, Pierson methodically started chipping away at the lead. Carle Place only led by five points, 41-36, going into the fourth, and just a minute or so in, there was a sense that the Whalers had finally gained some momentum.

It was at that point that senior co-captain Cecil Munshin really took over the game. With fellow senior co-captain and leading scorer Wilson Bennett being double teamed, even at times drawing a triple team, Pierson was going to need someone to step up and it was Munshin’s three that tied the game at 43. Then after the Whalers forced a turnover, senior Leo Butler scored giving the Whalers their first lead of the game with five minutes remaining.

After Carle Place tied the game, Munshin, who scored 12 of his 16 points in the second half — eight in the fourth quarter — hit yet another three, then Bennett sunk a jump shot forcing the Frogs to call a timeout with 3:43 left. Pierson sophomore Dom Mancino stole the ball at halfcourt out of the break and scored on a layup to make it a 52-45 ballgame, but Carle Place, to its credit, responded. Christopher Colacielo, a junior, hit a three, then Zannino (team-high 23 points) hit another three to pull themselves within a single point of Pierson’s 52-51 lead, and Carle Place head coach John Cantwell called a timeout with 1:10 left.

But out of that break, Bennett drained a jumper from the left elbow with 40 seconds remaining, and that was really the final dagger the Whalers needed. Carle Place continued to foul in the waning seconds, but it didn’t matter — the Whalers were on their way to their first Long Island Championship in 44 years.

“Just staying composed as a team was definitely a huge aspect in being able to complete that comeback,” Munshin said after the game. “We felt confident as a team that we would be able to execute down the stretch. My teammates definitely put me in a great position to hit those shots, but I had a mentality of kind of taking over and being aggressive, for sure.”

Bennett, who scored 15 of his game-high 25 points in the second half, said the team took only being down by six, despite its first-half issues, almost as a positive.

“Coming out at halftime we were down six, we were 6 for 16 from the line, that’s 10 points right there. We knew we were still in this game. It was really our foul shots that were holding us back,” he explained. “In the first half, they hit two bank-shot threes and they were getting a lot of long rebounds over us and we knew we were still in that game. They had the lead the entire second half and we got it late in the fourth and we knew we had the momentum.”

Bennett gave credit to this teammates for stepping up when they needed to.

“I knew they were going to throw one of their toughest defenders on me, one of their stronger guys,” he said of Carle Place. “They handled it to the best of their ability, but I had my guys right there next to me. I was dishing to them, they were getting easy shots. We were getting our own rebounds, which was great. I think they outrebounded us in the first half, we came out gritty in the second half. We were just able to grab all the boards and get those second-chance opportunities to put us up.”

Fujita said despite a few starters being in foul trouble throughout the game, it was a part of the game plan regardless to get a few key players off the bench and into the game, and he said they all stepped up and played a part in the win, particularly Mancino, fellow sophomore Keanu King and junior Logan Hartstein.

“Keanu, Dom and Logan all gave us defensive spurts that we really, really needed,” he said. “And then they controlled the ball on offense, they limited the amount of times they put the ball on the floor and limited turnovers, and that is a really important thing to do.”

Both Bennett and Munshin said it was nice etching the team into the history books.

“What’s it been, 44 years?” Bennett asked. “Feels good knowing that we’ll come back here in a couple of years, seeing that little ball up there on the banner.

“Especially the fact that we didn’t have an opportunity to play last year,” Munshin added. “So it’s kind of been two years waiting for this, to really see our potential and look to do this as a team.”