Quakers Turn the Tables on Yorktown in Outbracket Game
When the 2018 sectional tournament’s seeding and schedule were announced last week, the players on the Horace Greeley girls’ basketball team must have responded with a collective groan.
After all, the Quakers found out they’d be facing Yorktown, a team that had already beaten them twice during the regular season, including a 27-point drubbing very recently.
So first-year head coach Sarah Schum knew she would have to call upon all her powers of persuasion to convince her team that the third meeting might have a different outcome.
“Oh, you use all the clichés,” she would admit last Wednesday evening. “It’s hard to beat a team three times. We’re rivals, we’re crosstown, you know what they’re doing. We watched a lot of film. I told them I’ll get them some new plays to get them a little bit of confidence.”
Only moments earlier, Schum had looked on with pride from the sideline as her players discovered the third time can indeed be the charm. Just 14 days after getting crushed up in Yorktown, the Quakers returned to the same gymnasium and emerged with a 44-38 victory over the Huskers in a Class AA outbracket playoff game.
Brianna Gadaleta finished with a team-high 13 points despite sitting the entire third quarter with foul trouble, while Jessica Harris scored nine and both Rachel Janis and Safia Gecaj added eight as the 19th-seeded Quakers brought a disappointing end to the 14th-seeded Huskers’ season and advanced to the tournament’s opening round.
“I put them through a rigorous two days of adjustment and practices where we changed a lot of stuff,” said Schum. “And they rose to the occasion today.”
In a seesaw contest in which the lead changed hands 10 times, Greeley scored the first five points of the fourth quarter to break a 31-31 deadlock and never trailed again. Gadaleta, summoned from the bench 20 seconds into the period after sitting with three fouls the whole second half, immediately provided a big lift for the Quakers, connecting on a 3-point shot moments after stepping back onto the floor.
“Yes, three right off the bat,” said Schum of the trey Gadaleta made to give Greeley the lead for good. “Brianna Gadaleta is a special, special player. Thankfully she’s only a junior, so I get her next year too. But she’s special and this team depends on her and they look to her and she rises to the occasion.”
It was Gadaleta who scored the game’s first basket on a lefty toss in the lane 70 seconds after the opening tipoff. Her left-side 3-pointer with 2:35 to go in the opening quarter enabled Greeley to build its largest lead of the evening, 11-5. But Yorktown scored the last seven points of the period, grabbing a one-point edge with Ashley Zeolla’s put-back bucket at the buzzer.
The second quarter began with Yorktown getting a 3-pointer from Kat Severino, who scored a game-high 18 points, then two free throws by Jesse Barer. With 5:47 left in the half, Greeley suddenly found itself facing its largest deficit of the night, six points. But a couple of inside baskets by Gecaj and then Helen Matthews’ right-baseline drive for a layup in the final minute allowed the Quakers to close within 21-19 at halftime.
Despite the absence of Gadaleta for the duration of the third quarter, Greeley still managed to start the second half on an 8-2 run and wound up outscoring the Huskers 12-10 in the period. Janis and Harris each had a pair of baskets in the quarter and the Quakers tied the game at 31 apiece when Kat Genda fed Janis for a layup with five seconds remaining.
Schum blamed herself for keeping her primary scorer on the court with two fouls in the first half, but credited her other players with stepping up when Gadaleta finally did sit.
“I selfishly kept her in with two (fouls),” she said. “I probably should’ve taken her out. But we didn’t start her in the third. I told her if we got down six, don’t even look at me. Just check in. And the rest of her teammates picked her up. They did a great job and they allowed her to sit on the bench for the entire third quarter so we could save her for the fourth when we really needed her.”
Gadaleta’s 3-pointer 30 seconds into the fourth quarter broke the final tie of the game and the Quakers later opened up a five-point advantage when Harris made a left-corner 3-pointer. They were trying to hang onto a 40-38 lead with 15.9 seconds on the clock. Janis missed two free throws, but Gecaj got an offensive rebound, was fouled and proceeded to make her two foul shots with 12.4 seconds to go.
“Rachel and Saf are good friends,” said Schum, “and as soon as the timeout was called after Saf hit the two free throws, Rache said you always have my back. That’s how this team is. They look out for each other.”
The Huskers’ last gasp came as Zeolla missed on a layup try with five seconds remaining. Gadaleta provided two clinching free throws with 3.8 seconds left and soon the Quakers were celebrating some special payback for a team they had struggled against this season.
“It’s big,” said Schum about advancing to the first round. “I mean, it’s big for the kids. They deserve to have this feeling tonight. They’ve been working hard all year. I came in with a completely different system and I’ve been asking a lot of them. They deserve to get the benefits of all the hard work they put in when no one’s watching.”
Even though the Quakers’ season predictably ended in the opening round on Saturday at third-seeded Albertus Magnus, Schum thinks her team made a lot of progress in her first year at the helm
“I’ve told them it’s going to be a process changing Horace Greeley girls’ basketball,” she said. “And I got them shirts saying ‘BE THE CHANGE’ at the beginning of the year. And everyone kind of bought in and we’re doing it. It’s a wonderful little family we’re starting to form”
Andy is a sports editor at Examiner Media, covering seven high schools in the mid-Westchester region with a notebook and camera. He began there in the fall of 2007 following 15 years as a candid photographer for the largest school picture company in the tri-state area.
Read more of Andy’s full bio here.
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