A Garden Showdown-Francis Lewis returns to championship game, but 7-time defending champs await

It was equal parts agony and ecstasy as No. 3 Francis Lewis held off second-seeded Grand Street Campus, 69-61, in the PSAL Class A semifinals at Hunter College Saturday afternoon.
On the one hand, there was the ecstasy of reaching Madison Square Garden, the site of the PSAL championship game, for the fifth time in six years with three new starters. “It’s always exciting going back to the Garden,” Francis Lewis Coach Michael Eisenberg said. “It’s a great thing, especially this year when people thought we had no chance.”
Then there is the agony of facing Murry Bergtraum, the seven-time defending city champions who are the second-ranked team in the country, and have beaten the Patriots handily four previous times in the city finals. “I’ve told people this might be their best team. They have the best backcourt in the country,” Eisenberg said, referring to the Rutgers-bound guard Epiphanny Prince, who set the all-time single game scoring record with 113 points in a league win back in February, and the quick-as-lightning junior Erica Morrow.
Nevertheless, the Patriots’ win over Grand Street was cause for celebration. Behind Vionca Murray and Diatiema Hill, the two lone returning starters, Francis Lewis jumped out to an early 23-12 lead when Hill capped a 14-0 run with a lay-up. The lead ballooned to 53-36 late in the third quarter on a Murray hoop, but the Wolves came storming back, cutting the deficit to four with 1:15 remaining.
Murray and Hill hit five free-throws down the stretch to ice it. Murray, the Virginia Tech recruit, scored a game-high 25 points and grabbed 12 rebounds while Hill added 23 points, 10 rebounds and eight assists. “We said if they both score in the 20’s, we’re going to lose,” Grand Street Coach Tommy Torres said. “And that’s what happened.”
But it was sophomore point guard Sylvia Davis, academically ineligible for the playoffs a season ago, that broke the Grand Street press and could be the difference at the Garden this time around. She finished with 11 points and seven assists. “We can’t worry about how many times they beat us,” Davis said. “Our goal is to win.”
If Davis can help to neutralize the Blazers’ full-court pressure, Murray feels this year could be different. “Bergtraum can’t handle us inside if we go three-big. I’m just ready to go to the Garden and beat them, get them back for last year.”