Emma Kline leads Floral Park past North Shore in quarterfinals
Floral Park celebrates its victory over North Shore after a Nassau Class A girls basketball quarterfinal playoff game on Tuesday at North Shore. Credit: Peter Frutkoff
The Floral Park girls basketball team has felt like underdogs all season. On Tuesday, they proved again why they shouldn’t be overlooked.
Floral Park, the No. 6 seed in the Nassau Class A playoffs, beat host No. 3 North Shore 50-43 in their quarterfinals matchup.
Emma Kline led the Knights (16-6) with 22 points, and Katherine Klein added 16, including 12 in the second half.
“We’ve been the underdog all season, I think we like that,” Klein said. “We have this little saying, ‘What about us?’ People are talking about all these other teams, but what about us?”
North Shore (19-3) won 15 consecutive games before Tuesday. The Vikings cut Floral Park's lead down to three points with 1:15 remaining. But Kline scored four points in the final minute to seal the win.
Knights coach Mike Spina knew his team wouldn’t outscore the Vikings if they played a high-scoring game. Spina routinely switched Floral Park’s defense between different zone coverages in the first half.
North Shore led Floral Park by a point out of halftime when Spina turned his team to man-to-man defense.
“I think that caught [North Shore] by surprise in the third quarter,” Spina said. “They executed the game plan to perfection. I couldn’t be any more proud of this team.”
Along with Spina’s defensive scheme, Klein scored the first eight points of the second half, pushing Floral Park to a 26-19 lead early in the third quarter.
"I didn’t want to lose," Klein said. "I didn’t want to go home."
Spina said his team practices 10 different inbounds formations and eight or nine different plays out of each one.
Though he added they don’t run every play, Floral Park diced through North Shore’s pressure out of stoppages and found open players around the basket.
“My teammates are selfless,” Klein said. “We play best when we play as a team, when we all pass to each other and get open looks, like today.”
Riding a three-game win streak, the Knights will play No. 2 Lynbrook in the Nassau Class A semifinals at Hofstra University on Monday. Lynbrook and Floral Park split their two regular-season matchups this winter.
