Streaking South Side wins Nassau Class A title
Josh Garelle of South Side drives to the net during the Nassau Class A boys basketball championship against Manhasset on Saturday at Hofstra. Credit: Dawn McCormick
The moment the South Side boys basketball team spent an entire season hoping for finally arrived on Saturday. The Cyclones met it perfectly.
South Side’s spectacular season brought it back to the same arena and same opponent — defending state champ Manhasset — that ended its season in the county semifinals a year ago. This time, with a county title at stake, it was going to be different and the Cyclones were going to make sure of it.
James Murphy looked into the faces of his teammates in the locker room shortly before tipoff and said “they didn’t just want to win. They needed to win.”
Then the Cyclones went out and scored a complete and impressive 57-46 victory over Manhasset to capture the Nassau Class A championship at Hofstra's Mack Sports Complex.
On one end of the court, they moved the ball with aplomb and made all the big shots. On the other, they made Manhasset take contested jump shots and limited what might have been the county’s best offensive rebounding team to only a few second chances.
“We wanted to come out and show them what we’ve got and we had plenty,” swingman Josh Garelle said. “It just felt like we wanted it a little more than they did.”
South Side (23-1) is county champion for the 12th time and first since 2012. It rides a 23-game winning streak into next Saturday’s 2 p.m. Long Island Class A championship game against Suffolk champion Kings Park (17-7) at Stony Brook's Island Federal Arena. The Cyclones will be seeking their second LI title and first since 1978.
South Side coach Jerry D’Angelo has been telling his players that their season is like a book. He put pen to paper earlier in the day and wrote out how he envisioned the day playing out with a victory. When the team gathered before warmups he reached into his pocket and brought it out to show them. Across the top he’d written: “The Final Chapter.”
“I wrote that we play a game with no regrets and that’s exactly what we got,” he said. “I couldn’t be more proud of how they met this moment.”
Garelle had 10 of his game-high 16 points in the second half when South Side pulled away. James Bivona added 13 points, including three three-pointers. Robert Pericolosi had 11 points and 11 rebounds.
Liam Connor finished with 15 points, James Notias with 14 points and Liam Buckley with seven points for Manhasset (22-2).
If there was a bellwether moment in this one, it came a little more than two minutes into the game when the ball found Bivona on the wing with the shot clock running down. The smallest guy on the court at 5-9, the senior stood huge in draining a three-pointer off a pass from Murphy.
“I wanted to come out confident and when the first one went down, my confidence just grew,” Bivona said. “We have a team of big-time players and we all want the big-time moments in a game.”
Bivona had eight of his points as South Side led 16-6 after one quarter. Mostly quiet in those first eight minutes, Connor brought Manhasset back with four points and three assists in the second at it drew within 23-22 at halftime.
Over the final 3:28 of the third quarter and first five minutes of the fourth, South Side just overpowered Manhasset. Garelle had nine points and Pericolosi five in a 22-5 run for a 49-35 lead with 4:12 left. Manhasset had to go to a fouling strategy, but never got closer than the final score as the Cyclones made eight of 14 free throws while allowing two baskets on 10 Manhasset possessions.
If there is one mistake that D’Angelo might have made it was entitling his piece “The Final Chapter.” The Cyclones are enjoying this winning streak and want to add an epilogue.
As Murphy explained, “The job’s not finished.”
Roger Rubin returned to Newsday in 2018 to write about high schools, colleges and baseball following 20 years at the Daily News. A Baseball Hall of Fame voter since 2011, he has covered 13 MLB postseasons and 14 NCAA Final Fours.
