No Holiday Cheer for Patriots

His star out of sorts and team staring down the barrel of yet another loss at their holiday tournament, Mike Eisenberg could hold back no longer.
As he walked past his bench and glancing at the scoreboard - which showed Lewis trailing by double figures with 2:49 remaining - Eisenberg kicked one of the empty chairs.
Old School Eisenberg.
The way he was in leading Francis Lewis to Madison Square Garden five of six years - all losses to nine-time defending champion Murry Bergtraum - before he had his second child, 18-month-old Abigail and scaled back the histrionics.
“I think it’s my daughter’s fault,” he joked. “We haven’t been good since she was born. She’s not going to get her apple sauce tonight.”
Twenty-four seconds later, he picked up the chair. It did not ease the afternoon’s frustration, for him or his Patriots. For the second consecutive year, Lewis lost in their own tournament, this time 46-29 to McKee/Staten Island Tech last Sunday.
There wasn’t much to go right for the Patriots, who despite a 5-2 record, aren’t playing up to standards. The two quality opponents they have met - August Martin and McKee - are their two losses.
From the get-go, Eisenberg knew it was going to be a long day. Senior point guard Sylvia Davis picked up three quick fouls and never found a rhythm, scoring just three points on 1-of-12 shooting. Her running mate, junior Andree DeLeon, wasn’t much better, finishing with seven points on 1-of-10 from the field. Senior forward Margaret Elenis led the Patriots with eight.
“We wouldn’t beat an elementary school [with them shooting] 2-for-21,” Eisenberg said.
The remaining link to the great Patriots teams of the past, Lewis’s fate rests on Davis’s shoulders. The St. Thomas Aquinas-bound guard admitted to pressing after getting into early foul trouble and putting her head down after the slow start. That it was her 17th birthday didn’t make it much better, either.
“Worst I ever played in my life,” Davis said. “Terrible. I feel more pressure on myself just because the team depends on me. When I’m playing bad, the flow is not there and we all just play bad. Our whole vibe wasn’t there; the energy wasn’t there. One of those bad shooting days, I can’t even explain it.”
“This,” she later added,” is the worst present.”
Lewis faced a similar crossroads at this point last season, too. They were blitzed by Cardozo early, but went on to win their seventh borough title and advance to the city quarterfinals. That team was very similar - an undersized group led by Davis, Elenis and DeLeon.
“It just takes chemistry and lot of us picking each other up,” Elenis said. “We’re going to go through a lot of losses like this, ones we know we can win. We’ll pick ourselves up.”