Francis Lewis meets their match

This year was vastly different from the preceding six years for Francis Lewis.
Because they graduated four starters now playing Division I college basketball, the Patriots were looked at as one of the weaker teams in the city.
At first, that notion was justified; Lewis dropped two of their first three league games. However, they found their groove late, winning four of their last five to earn their seventh Queens title in a row. Unfortunately, for the first time in the last decade, they began the playoffs on the road as a decided underdog and the end was all too similar. The Patriots were beaten by Murry Bergtraum, the eight-time defending city champs - although the meeting place was at Hunter College instead of Madison Square Garden, the site of the city championship game where the two teams have faced off five of the last six years.
“This is different,” said point guard Sylvia Davis, the lone returning starter, after the Blazers’ 80-37 thumping in the PSAL Class AA quarterfinals. “We’re not as skilled as we were last year, and they’re hard to beat.”
There were, indeed, few similarities between this meeting and those of the recent past. There was little hype attached to this match-up despite the Patriots’ come-from-behind upset of No. 8 South Shore in the opening round. Bergtraum, after all, entered as a prohibitive favorite, undefeated at 24-0, and ranked fourth in the nation by USA Today.
Nevertheless, Lewis (15-10) hung tough through much of the first quarter, trailed by just eight after the first eight minutes, and 10 midway through the second quarter. “Those first 12 minutes, if we would’ve played like that the whole game, it could’ve been different,” senior center Michele Runko said.
“We needed to play a perfect game,” Francis Lewis Coach Michael Eisenberg lamented.
As has always been the case, the Patriots couldn’t handle the Blazers’ full-court pressure, turning the ball over 18 times, many of them in the second quarter when they were outscored 20-4. “The pressure, it took over,” Davis said.
Erica Morrow led Bergtraum with 25 points and Shanee Williams added 18. Davis was the lone Patriot in double figures with 10. Christie Toth had seven and Runko and Margaret Elenis had six apiece.
Despite the lopsided result, the crestfallen faces usually attached to the Francis Lewis bench after losses to Bergtraum weren’t there afterward. Eisenberg spoke of how much his team improved, more than any of his other more-talented outfits. Davis chose to look to next season, calling it “preparation for next year.”
“I’m very proud of this team,” Runko said. “We came from really nowhere to going to the quarterfinals.”