By Marc Raimondi
No, when they left the court after a 68-55 loss to Boys & Girls, the city's second-seeded team, in the PSAL Class AA semifinals Tuesday at St. John's University, their heads were held high. If this game was in November or December or in spring of 2007, the result would have been quite different.Boys& Girls got out to leads of 14-4 in the first quarter and 37-25 at halftime. But Edison never folded, it never quit. The Inventors climbed within 48-43 in the fourth quarter, took another hard Kangaroos punch – the lead went back to 13 – but closed again within 56-49.”They would have just blown us out of the game,” said senior Allan Thomas, if it had been played earlier this season.Added coach John Ulmer: “A lot of people thought we were going to get blown out today. That absolutely did not happen.”In fact, if the Inventors played a little better in the first quarter, they could have even won the game. All of this couldn't even have been imagined at the beginning of the season. Edison wasn't even the favorite in Queens – Cardozo and Campus Magnet have that title on lockdown. Everyone thought the Inventors would struggle trying to make the transition from 'A' to 'AA.' And at first they did.They were outclassed by Thurgood Marshall in the PSAL Tip-Off Classic and lost their first league game to Campus Magnet. The absolute low point was a crushing defeat at home to Bayside Dec. 4. That's when everyone knew this season wasn't going to go as planned; that's when they knew everyone else was being proven correct.There was a sit-down meeting after that game with two new faces. Rob Diaz, who runs the NYC Finest AAU program that a handful of Edison kids play for, would join Ulmer's staff as an assistant. And Isiah Stokley, who had just attained a safety transfer from Martin Van Buren, would add a hard-nosed, aggression to the team as a junior.”That was a wake-up call,” Diaz said of the Bayside game.After that, the light went on for Edison. The Inventors were about to realize their immense potential. After a bump in the road against Forest Hills, Edison beat Cardozo and Campus Magnet in back-to-back games broken up by the holiday break. The next time they played Bayside, still smarting from the embarrassing loss, they won, 100-44.The path was not exactly paved yet, though. Edison reverted back to its enigmatic self when it finished the season with losses to Cardozo and Queen AA bottom feeder Beach Channel. There was in-fighting. Thomas and junior point guard Stephon Hodges, the closest of friends, were butting heads. The Inventors lost to Cardozo again in the semifinals of the Queens Borough championship – the tournament they won from Class A last year.They earned a disappointing No. 11 seed in the PSAL Class AA citywide playoffs, but didn't hang their heads.”We didn't quit,” Ulmer said. “That's one thing I'll say about these guys is that they don't quit.”Instead, they beat Truman in the first round, then shocked No. 6 Curtis in the second round on hostile Staten Island. On Saturday at St. John's, Edison did the improbable by upending No. 3 Wadleigh rather easily, 80-68.Along the way, the Inventors earned some respect from the city for their school. Edison, a vocational school on the Grand Central Parkway service road in Jamaica, is not quite known for its athletics. The people who graduate from there are good with their hands, they don't have a great handle.”They've done so much for the school,” Ulmer said. “I told them, 'You went from being a team that everyone walked right over to a team that has earned a lot of respect in the city.'”Even viewing the final four teams alive in the playoffs was odd. There was all-world Lincoln, with man-child Lance Stephenson. There was traditional Brooklyn powers Boys & Girls and Thomas Jefferson. And then there was Thomas Edison. None of that mattered Tuesday, though. Stokley had 21 points and Thomas, playing in his final high-school game, had 15 against Boys & Girls. Senior Presano Bell, the stalwart big man, added 12 points. Thomas, Bell and swingman Arthur Abbensett will be the core players forever remembered for putting Edison on the basketball map. Stokley and Hodges will be looked upon to further the Inventors' reputation next year.While Boys & Girls will head to Madison Square Garden Sunday to play Lincoln in the city final, Edison can cross back over the Grand Central with a sense of pride and accomplishment.Edison 80, Wadleigh 68. The Inventors stunned No. 3 Wadleigh, 80-68, in the PSAL Class AA quarterfinals at Carnesecca Arena Saturday afternoon. Led by Thomas (25 points), Hodges (20 points), Stokley (12 points) and Bell (10 points), Edison jumped out to a 22-7 first-half lead and never trailed. Led by William Harrison, who scored a game-high 35 points, Wadleigh cut its deficit to just six points at the half. But the Inventors extended their lead to 65-49 heading into the fourth quarter and cruised from there.- Dylan Butler
