Playoffs or bust for St. Gabriel’s

For as long as they can remember, almost the entire 8th grade boys basketball team from St. Gabriel’s has played together. Most of them met in the East Elmhurst Catholic School basketball program, headed by Leslie Lance, at the age of six.
But this year, under Lance, the longtime athletic director at the school who developed such local basketball stars as Ron Artest, Khalid Reeves and Derrick Phelps, their journey will come to an end. The team will separate and go on to different high schools.
But first, they hope to win a championship, the school’s first in the intermediate division since 2000.
So far, that title is a distinct possibility. The team is 13-1, sitting comfortably atop the Long Island City East in first place. Outside of the one loss, St. Gabriel’s has been in just one close game, a five-point win over Margaret Mary, especially impressive considering they’ve been without their star 6-foot-4 center Michael Poole, out with a broken arm, but who should return for the second round of the playoffs.
Outside of the lone defeat, it’s been blowout after blowout, like their latest triumph, a 65-37 thumping of St. Savior’s of Brooklyn. An athletic bunch that loves to get out in the open court, they lost in the Catholic Youth Organization (CYO) Brooklyn-Queens Diocesan 7th grade semifinals a season ago.
“I’m ready for the playoffs,” said forward Sadike Nagbe, 13, from East Elmhurst who will attend St. John’s Prep next fall. Lance, in his 35th year of coaching, has told the team this could be his final year on the bench, which also fuels this close-knit group.
“We’re trying to get him a championship this year,” Nagbe said. “With all of us going to high school after this season, it would be a big deal to go out on top.”
St. Gabriel’s plays at full speed all the time, going in one gear - overdrive - for an entire 32 minutes. On every rebound, every turnover by the opposition, every made basket -they run.
“That’s what we’re built on - running and trapping,” Lance said. “We’re very good at pressing the ball.”
“We like to shoot a lot of 3-pointers, run the fast break as much as we can and play a lot of defense,” said the dynamic point guard Devante Stennett, 13, of East Elmhurst who will attend either Edison or Forest Hills next year. As for how that continues once the postseason begins, he said, “we need to stay consistent, like we’ve played all year.”
They recently lost for the first time, but as Lance sees it, the defeat could be a good thing.
“It’ll keep them from thinking they’re invincible,” he said. “Now we know we can be beaten. The point is, will we allow ourselves to be beaten?”
In perhaps his final chance, Lance would jump at the opportunity to finish on top.
“I just want to get there,” he said. “If we go out on the road and play right, we can win the whole thing.”