Riverhead’s young girls basketball team was destined to be riddled with growing pains this season. But midway through the season, the team is not only competing but nearly winning.
After leading for three quarters against West Islip (4-3 League III, 7-4 overall) Tuesday night, the Blue Waves folded down the stretch, blowing an 11-point fourth quarter lead to lose 52-47. Coach Dave Spinella put the all the blame on himself after seeing his team lose their third straight game going into the last quarter with a lead.
“Finding out a way to close out games is totally on me,” Spinella said. “These kids play well enough to win for three and a half quarters; I gotta get them through that final half quarter. They deserve it, they’ve earned it, they work their butts off all day long, every day. They do everything I ask them to do and they’re fantastic kids. I love all of them and I’m going to find a way to get them through the rest of these games.
“I gotta go look in the mirror and figure out what I have to do.”
With eighth-grader Faith Johnson-Desilvia inserted into the starting lineup, Riverhead (1-6 League III, 3-7 overall) now starts three eighth-graders and two sophomores. Assuming that they’ll stay healthy, this will be the starting unit for the next two years.
“The last three games have been taxing,” Spinella said, completely deflated. “We were up one against Smithtown East who are in second place and we lose by five. We were up four with five minutes to go against Smithtown West on Saturday and lose by three. And we’re up 11 with five minutes left in the game today, you know? And that’s all my fault, I gotta figure out a way to get them through.”
Much of Riverhead’s issues down the stretch had to deal with failing to break the press. West Islip’s senior point guard Lindsay Darrell caused havoc for the young Waves’ guards, forcing turnovers and finishing with easy layups. The Lions tied the game with 2:27 left to go. Spinella said he’s going to consider bringing in some experience to get the ball across the half-court line in crucial parts of the game with senior Gabby Greene to ease some of the pressure off the young guards.
“They were pressing us the whole game and we were fine, we didn’t turn the ball over,” Spinella said. “But at the end things started to fall apart and that’s what I have to fix. I’m going to be doing a lot of film work this weekend to get us ready for the second half of the season.”
If the team was getting blown out every game, Spinella said he would understand and take this season as one to improve and get better for the next. But that hasn’t been the case.
“When you’re good enough to be in these games against teams that are much older, bigger, faster and probably better than us, then we need to get those wins,” Spinella said. “As kind of house-money this season was supposed to be, I don’t see it that way. These kids deserve to get wins here. They deserve to feel what it’s like to get a string of wins together and find success.”
“While I might measure this team as successful because they’re getting better every day and they’re doing the right thing every day, this team would beat our team two months ago by 20, it’s that simple,” Spinella said. “We’re so much better than we were in November.”
Sophomores Sam Dunn (19 points, 19 rebounds) and Dezarae Brown (9 points, 15 rebounds) led the way for Riverhead. Eigth-grader Kate McCarney chipped in eight points.
Riverhead plays host to Smithtown West Thurdsday at 4 p.m.
Notes: Kyra Miller smacked into the padded wall behind the hoop following a layup attempt and hit the ground hard with 1:47 remaining in the fourth quarter. She injured her knee in the incident and was taken to the hospital by ambulance. She did not suffer a fracture, but will have an MRI next week and will be on crutches for a while, Spinella said this morning.
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