By Dylan Butler
While basketball is a game of five against five, the women's game between York and City College Friday night was broken down to a one-on-one battle. No. 23 vs. No. 23. On one end was Lauren Cargill for CCNY, the country's second leading scorer and going shot for shot with the freshman was York's Tamara Taylor.
Unfortunately for the visiting Cardinals, Taylor, a junior guard who matched Cargill with 26 points, was her team's lone offensive threat. Debra Pasquale added 22 points and 14 rebounds and CCNY dominated the boards for a 62-50 upset win in the second game of a doubleheader. The York men's basketball team defeated CCNY in the opener, 69-50.
“We couldn't get over the hurdle, that little jump that we needed,” said York head coach Jackie Smith. “This team can't rely on one person to score and that's what it looked like tonight. One person had it going, everybody else was still outside in the cold.”
York (8-7, 6-1 CUNY) matched the frigid temperatures in the beginning of the game. Cargill, who played at Cardozo High School, opened the game with back-to-back three-pointers and CCNY had a 21-8 lead after five straight points by Pasquale with 9:20 remaining in the first half.
“Teams now key in on Lauren,” said CCNY head coach Derrick Harrison. “When it comes to the game, their main focus is to stop 23, but in the first couple of plays of the game, 32 makes you take notice. That actually frees Lauren up for more shots.”
But then the Cardinals began to heat up. Taylor nailed a baseline three-pointer, scored on a putback and made two free throws. The sophomore from Staten Island's bounce pass found Garrianee Brown, whose layup cut CCNY's lead to 28-21 with 50 seconds left in the first half. York went into the break down 30-21.
On a layup by Brown, York trailed by just five, 33-28. CCNY (5-10, 3-3) then went on a 17-5 run on several offensive rebounds. City College held a 58-33 advantage on the glass. Cargill's three from the right side put CCNY ahead, 50-33, with 9:30 left.
York continued to try to scratch and claw its way back in the game and trailed by nine, 53-44, on a turnaround eight-foot jumper by Nicole Perry. The Cardinals hovered around the 10-point mark until Cargill's three straight points with 42 seconds left gave CCNY a 62-47 lead.
“We wanted them to shoot the outside shot,” said Harrison, a Corona resident. “If they could beat us from the outside, that was the way they were going to beat us. We knew they were a transition team, so we didn't want to let them play an up-tempo game. We did a good job of slowing them down to our pace.”
Roxanne Nathaniel added six points, 16 rebounds and five assists for CCNY. Brown had 12 points for York.
Neil Edwards led the York men's basketball team with eight points, nine rebounds and six blocks in just 16 minutes of action. Edwards, a 7-foot senior center, was benched for the first by York head coach Ronald St. John for arriving late. Junior Stanley O'Neill led York (8-7, 6-1 CUNY) with 20 points and sophomore guard William Short added 17 points. CCNY (6-8, 2-4) was paced by four players in double-figure scoring.
Ralph Perez led the Beavers with 13 points, Neil Harewood added 11 points and 14 rebounds and Mischael Bucknight and Andrew Richards scored 10 points apiece.
