Senat foul shots help Elmont top Baldwin
Elmont forward Dillon Williams #11 moves into the zone as Baldwin guard Brandon Williams #11 defends. (March 5, 2011) Credit: George A. Faella
After practice Friday night, Elmont's players gathered outside the school's athletic trophy case, and at the insistence of their coach, they gazed inside.
They saw four basketball plaques, all silver in color, representing second place and a loss in the county championship game. They also saw a blank space for another plaque, with a nail already in place.
"I had told the custodian to put a nail there and then I asked the kids, 'What color will the next one be?' " said George Holub, the Spartans' coach for three of those silvers. "They all said they wanted gold."
The golden age finally arrived for Elmont Saturday afternoon. The Spartans survived an astonishingly ragged offensive game to defeat top-seeded Baldwin, 32-29, at Hofstra to win the Nassau Class AA boys title for the first time in school history.
"It's a tremendous relief," Holub said.
The Spartans (18-2) did not score a field goal in the fourth quarter. They sank 8 of 10 free throws, however, including a pair by Greg Senat for a 30-29 lead with 43.4 seconds left. They held off Baldwin (16-4) and advanced to next Sunday's Long Island AA title game at Stony Brook University against Suffolk representative Half Hollow Hills West.
Presumably, Elmont will need to score more than 32 points against Hills West to earn a trip to Glens Falls for the state playoffs.
"Sometimes the shots fall. Sometimes they don't," Holub said. "Our main emphasis every day in practice is to play tough defense."
That clearly was Baldwin's emphasis, too, with both teams employing a relentless, harassing, pressure-the-ball style of defense all over the court. "It was tough putting the ball in the hoop," Elmont guard Dillon Williams said, mastering the art of the understatement. "The defensive pressure got us frustrated on offense and we were a little out of control."
Turnovers and errant shots were frequent, though the game began, oddly enough, with two offensive streaks. Elmont scored the first nine points but Baldwin's T'Ziah Wood-Smith answered by scoring his team's first 11 points, tying it early in the second quarter with two free throws. After that, neither team led by more than four.
Trailing 31-29, Baldwin had possession with 26 seconds remaining and tried to drive to the basket. But Williams stripped the ball loose and saved it from going out of bounds with a jump pass to Robert Chambers (10 points), who hit one of two free throws with 12 seconds left.
The Bruins could not get off a shot in the final seconds. "I was frustrated on offense," Williams said. "So I knew I had to help my team on defense."
Williams' timely steal made his point, though he didn't score one the entire game. But he was able to contribute to a moment that, for a school and a community, was solid gold.
