By Dylan Butler
VALHALLA – Standing next to a dry erase board inside of the men's soccer locker room in the basement of Westchester Community College, Kyrk Peponakis had the rapt attention of the nine Queens College men's basketball players sitting on the three benches in front of him. It's 25 minutes until the Knights take on Mercy College in an East Coast Conference game and the QC coach is going over the scouting report for the final time. He has seven points written on the board, seven keys to victory. The final one seems obvious, but he says its one that he forgets to put on the board at times: Win.This is a team Queens should beat, a game it must have. Mercy is near the bottom of the league and Queens, despite losing four players early in the season for a variety of reasons, is near the top of the ECC.”You've got an opportunity here to put yourself in a position that, in 11 games from now when the playoffs start, you want to be in,” Peponakis said. “In my heart, we should not lose. That doesn't mean we're going to go up there and have it handed to us, we've got to go up there and take it from them.”The team walks up to the first floor and into the gym for warm-ups. Everything is normal – the starting lineups are announced, the national anthem played. But then the scoreboard is out and the start is delayed for another 20 minutes.It doesn't affect Queens, though, as the Knights jump out to a 13-2 lead. After freshman Greg Tull sits down following a foul and a screamed expletive, Peponakis bends down in front of him, quietly getting into the big man's ear. “Relax,” he said softly. “It's one play. It's not that bad.”The Knights returned to the locker room after leading by just eight at the half, not acceptable to the Queens coaching staff, especially since Mercy grabbed six offensive rebounds and Queens had seven turnovers.”Honestly, I don't see how we turn it over, because they're not really defending. We turn it over on our stupidity,” Peponakis said. “Let's go, this is our 20 minutes.”The players respond to the challenge, almost immediately going on a 10-0- run. Queens extended its lead to 20, but Mercy came back and made it a game before the Knights pulled away. The end was a bit chippy, with Hassan Washington leaving the game briefly with bruised ribs and then permanently with a cut over his left eye. Helping Queens athletic trainer Dan Unverzagt close the cut is Dr. Camelia Lawrence, the older sister of Queens senior Marvin Lawrence. Gerald Eugene's layup put Queens in front, 74-56 but it was his trash talking after the bucket that drew Peponakis' attention on the bench. “If you get a technical foul for taunting,” Peponakis said quietly to Eugene, another freshman. “You might as well think of transferring.”The game ended without further incident and Queens returned to the locker room afterwards for some closing remarks before boarding a pair of passenger vans and returning to Flushing.”As a coach, you know I'm never happy,” Peponakis said. “We have to finish games better. We have to play smart and finish it off right.”
