Next Up-Cold Spring Harbor-Defending State Champs-Sunday-March 15 on Long Island
YMA Girls Basketball Team, with Coach Elie Moise
By Dan Murphy
On March 12, the YMA Lady Eagles basketball team traveled to Mahopac High School to face off against O’Neill HS in a Class B Sub Regional playoff. YMA jumped out to an early 14-3 lead and never looked back, cruising to a 55-24 blowout win.
YMA Coach Elie Moise had the girls press O’Neill right from the start of the 1st quarter, and it paid off, as O’Neill wasn’t able to handle the pressure and pay off after breaking the press, missing several shorts shots, while also turning the ball over to YMA for easy layups.
This was a true team effort, with Anisa Mustafaj the leading scorer with 17 points, Emilee Doherty had 13 points, six rebounds and two steals, Arsela Mustafaj added six points, 10 rebounds, three assists and two steals. Liliana Toro had six points and two assists.
Filling the boxscore was Grace Gleeson who scored 8 points, 14 rebounds, 5 assists, 3 blocks and 3 steals.
Our friend said Chris Toro, whose daughter Liliana is the Lady Eagles point guard, told us, “It looked to me like the team came out very focused. Everyone was involved on both ends. Scoring was evenly distributed. The bench got a chance to play good minutes with the starters rooting for them, which was pretty cool because that doesn’t usually happen this time of year.”
This reporter had a chance to go to this game, and was impressed with the way the Lady Eagles came out and imposed their game on O’Neill. Two defensive standouts were Junior Keira Peters, #22, and Senior Arsela Mustafaj, #32. Both seemed to be everywhere on the court and are tough inside, diving after loose balls.
Although O’Neill had a tough time scoring, they did play defense, especially on Doherty, who they seemed intent on trying to shut down. But at the end of the game it was a 31 point win.
Next up is a challenge for YMA in the Regional finals, as the Lady Eagles travel to Long Island to play Cold Spring Harbor, the defending state champions in Class B. Last year, YMA got to this same spot, the regionals. One more win and YMA heads up to Albany for the final four. And the girls and Coach Elie want nothing more but to win and move on!
But now they play the Defending State Champs. This is as far as they got last year. 1 win from the Final 4 in Albany.
