6 Photos
Kyle Seltzer's 15 points were a big key to the Whalers' victory over Port Jeff last week. MARIANNE BARNETT
Pierson's Charlie McLean puts up a shot. MARIANNE BARNETT
Pierson's Dom Mancino puts up a shot. MARIANNE BARNETT
Luke Seltzer slams down two of his team-high 16 points in last week's victory over Port Jeff. MARIANNE BARNETT
Fritz Desir, far left, with his mother Lucinda Martinez, and Logan Hartstein with his parents Heather Hartstein and Brendan O'Reilly. Both seniors were both honored prior to last week's game against Port Jeff. MARIANNE BARNETT
The Pierson boys basketball team, as expected, solidified its position as the top Class C team in Suffolk County after its 49-37 victory at home over Port Jefferson on February 1.
The two victories over the Royals this season easily make the Whalers the top team in the county, and while playoff brackets were not available at press time, and most likely won’t be official until Friday at the latest, both Pierson and Port Jeff will face one another for the third time this season for the county title on Wednesday, February 15, at St. Joseph’s University in Patchogue at 5:30 p.m.
Since Port Jeff is 7-10 in League V play this season, it will have to petition to get into the county championship. Since League V is a mixed classification league with larger Class B schools, such as Southampton, Babylon, Mattituck and Center Moriches, Port Jeff will likely be successful in its petition, which is what head coach Will Fujita is counting on as he has said multiple times this season and again on Monday morning that he would rather play for the county championship than be given it outright. Southold, on the other hand, at 4-12 in the league, which Pierson played in its regular season finale on Tuesday, doesn’t really have the resumé to be able to petition and create an outbracket game against Port Jeff.
After missing a few key players due to illnesses and injuries in the loss to Southampton on January 30, a few players returned two days later to face Port Jeff and it helped. After honoring the team’s two seniors on Senior Night in Fritz Desir and Logan Hartstein, the Seltzer brothers, Luke and Kyle, scored 16 and 15 points, respectively, while Dom Mancino chipped in with seven points to lead the way for the Whalers. Fujita didn’t think it was his team’s best game, and said there is room for improvement before next week’s county championship, in which he expects his team will finally be at full strength.
“I thought that we were a little sluggish on the glass, and Port Jeff does a nice job controlling the tempo of the game, the way they want to slow it down on us,” he said. “We have to be a little more detailed in our ball movement, passes, cuts off the ball. That gave us a good opportunity to watch the film and I think it was good to sit down as a team and look at it, which is what we did.”
Fujita said the thing he likes the most about his team as it prepares for its next postseason run after reaching the state Final Four last season is that there is room for his team to grow and it knows that.
“I think because we had a late run, the experience both myself and the guys got last year was so invaluable and so we have to use every day that we have,” he explained. “It seems like a long time — after the county championship our next [meaningful] game wouldn’t be until March 10 — so we have to look at that and each week see how we can improve.
“In terms of things we need to work on, for the majority of the guys, this is their first time getting playoff experience,” he said. “With a lot of them returning next year, they have to be in the moment and understand the pressure and privilege of playing in the playoffs. That win-or-go-home mindset is definitely a different mentality.”
