By Dylan Butler
The number was 50, which was how many points Queens allowed in the second half Saturday night at Fitzgerald Gymnasium.By essentially taking the second half off, Queens nearly blew a 22-point halftime lead as Concordia crept to within nine with 4:12 left. And instead of starters Hassan Washington and Bradd Wierzbicki sitting on the bench enjoying the final minutes, they had to sweat out what should have been an easy East Coast Conference victory.”I thought we were out to get our own instead of win the game and that bothers me,” Peponakis said. “I'm just glad we won, but we've got to do better.”Queens (12-13, 9-9 ECC) did what it wanted offensively in the first half, going on a 19-0 run over an 8:21 span. Wierzbicki had 15 points, Mike Liander added 11 on a perfect 5-for-5 from the field and the Knights went into the locker room with a comfortable lead.But Queens, which gave up 96 points a game in back-to-back losses last week, was complacent and Concordia (8-17, 7-12) rallied. Richard Fields scored 19 of his game-high 26 points in the second half as the Clippers shot 48.6 percent from the field after shooting 25 percent (7-of-28) in the opening 20 minutes. On a Fields layup, Concordia was within 41-32 before Queens responded with seven straight points, including a critical three-pointer by Washington, who finished with 20 points, 10 assists and 5 rebounds to lead the Knights.Wierzbicki finished with 18 points on 5-of-19 shooting and Khaleef Allicott had 16 points – all in the second half – for Queens, which is in seventh place with two games left in the regular season.”If the game was anywhere near close, they could have won that game,” Washington said. “We got out to a little lead and got a little lax in the second half and they started making shots.”Perhaps the most frustrating thing for Peponakis is that the ECC is wide open this year, there is no dominant team. New York Tech and Bridgeport are first and second in the league, respectively, but the Knights split with both teams. Queens has as good a shot as any team to win the tournament, if they start to work on the defensive end.”Why can't we? If we ever decide to do it right for 40 minutes,” Peponakis said. “Today I asked them for 40 minutes, and I got 20. So Wednesday, I'm going to ask for 60 minutes and see if I can get 30.”Reach Sports Editor Dylan Butler by e-mail at news@timesledger.com or call 718-229-0300, Ext. 143.
