Malverne high school escaped with a narrow 47-44 victory over Wheatley high school Tuesday night at Farmingdale State College to advance to the Nassau Class B Championship match Friday evening.
It was a hard-fought performance for the team as they had to claw back from multiple deficits in order to get the win.
“Well coached team, disciplined team, they controlled the tempo, we were behind the whole game. Defense won the game as well as foul shooting,” said associate head coach Walter Aksionoff after the game.
The game was tightly contested in the first quarter with both teams holding a lead during the period. Malverne started out 4-0 in the game and used its physicality in the paint to gain an early advantage. Wheatley battled back into the game and took a 9-8 lead off their 2-3 zone defense which made driving lanes tough for Malverne to get to the basket. Their zone severely slowed down the superior athletes on Malverne and relegated them to jump shots from the perimeter, which wasn’t their game. They continued this coverage and took a 13-8 lead into the second quarter where they went on a mini 6-0 run to lead 19-8 over Malverne with a little over six minutes remaining until the break. Malverne then figured out their offense and worked the ball thought the post to get easy layups and put back opportunities. Since they were the aggressive team, they also got to the free throw line a lot and capitalized on their opportunities. They got back into the game and went into intermission with Wheatley still leading 23-21.
The game was nip and tuck between both teams until Deandre Blagrove for Malverne committed two costly turnovers, with one of them forcing him to foul out of the contest with 10 minutes left to decide who will advance to the championship match. Down their key Forward Jayden Seraphin stepped up big for Malverne manning the paint and cleaning up the extra rebounds off the glass in Blagrove’s absence.
Both teams did battle until late in the fourth quarter when Wheatley took a seven point lead with a little over two minutes to go. From there Michael Warren Jr. hit two crucial three- pointers in order to pull within one of Wheatley. “ Michal did not play his top-notch game as he can play, he came on good, but in the beginning he wasn’t attacking the rim. When he attacks the rim it changes the entire outlook of a game,” Aksionoff said.
Later on Wheatley would commit pivotal fouls and Malverne would ice the game on free-throws to advance to the next round. James O’Connell led Wheatley in scoring with 12 points while Warden and Seraphin had 12 points and 13 points respectively.
Their next opponent is heated rival the Academy of Charter. They met twice during the regular season and split their meetings.
“ It is going to be a bloodbath,” Aksionoff said. “ We have to play Malverne defense, they can score… one guy we can score but we have to shut down the others.”
