Christina John, sixth-seeded Hauppauge show no fear in winning Suffolk Class A championship
Hauppauge players celebrate their 51-40 victory against Mt Sinai in the Suffolk Class A girls basketball final at Farmingdale State College on Friday, Feb. 23, 2018. Credit: Kathleen Malone-Van Dyke
The Hauppauge girls basketball team didn’t get discouraged by its No. 6 seed in the Suffolk Class A playoffs. The Eagles didn’t feel downtrodden, and they certainly didn’t lose confidence. If anything, it added fuel to their fire.
Facing undefeated and top-seeded Mount Sinai on Friday night at Farmingdale State, Hauppauge played a tight zone and made timely baskets, penning the latest chapter in its Cinderella story.
The Eagles beat the Mustangs, 51-40, to earn a county title for the first time since capturing the Class B championship in 1997. Hauppauge, which moved from Class AA to Class A this season, will face the Nassau “A’’ winner for the Long Island championship.
“A seed is just a number,” said guard Christina John, who scored 16 points and went coast to coast on a transition layup to make the score 44-34 with 2:04 remaining. “A lot of people underrate us just because of that number, but we just had to make sure we got after it, worked hard on defense and offense, and this is how we got here.”
Mount Sinai (22-1), which beat Hauppauge (16-7) in its season opener on a buzzer-beating three-pointer by Gabby Sartori in overtime, threatened in the fourth quarter, cutting the Eagles’ lead to 38-34 on Amanda Dowler’s short jumper. Sartori (11 points), Brooke Cergol (11) and Olivia Williams (eight) fought hard to score in a challenging defensive game.
Their efforts weren’t enough to withstand John, Lindsey Devine (13 points) and 6-3 Lauren Romito, who had 11 points, 10 rebounds and six blocks. The three shot a combined 7-for-8 from the foul line in the final 1:31 to seal the win.
Foul shooting had been a focus for coach Jamie Edson since the team’s 30-29 loss to Harborfields in the last game of the regular season, when the Eagles shot 1-for-10 from the line — though that’s hardly the most adverse thing they had to overcome.
“We lost our first three games,” Edson said. “We graduated 12 seniors, five starters. It took these guys a while to kind of find their roles and their identities, but I think we’ve found it now.”
Hauppauge beat No. 3 Harborfields in the quarterfinals and No. 2 Kings Park in the semifinals, neither of which Edson considered an upset given the overall strength of League V, in which the three teams competed against each other. Fourth-seeded Sayville also played in League V.
“If there was an easier league to go against, maybe we wouldn’t have been able to make it here,” John said.
John and her teammates basked in the moment, celebrating the accomplishment of dethroning the defending county champions.
“Everyone thinks, ‘Oh, the six, don’t even worry about them,’ ” Devine said. “But we’ve beaten Harborfields before in the season, we beat Kings Park in the season, so we really weren’t afraid.”
