Within the last three seasons, the Townsend Harris High School girls basketball team has developed a culture of winning.
The Hawks have won 38 consecutive regular season PSAL league games in the Queens A West division. Standing in front of a cheering home crowd Monday with broad smiles on their faces, the team unveiled a banner which will hang in the school’s gym to celebrate its back to back undefeated 2012 and 2013 regular seasons.
But the banner ceremony may have been slightly premature, since the Hawks (PSAL 7-0) are on route to an unprecedented third undefeated regular season. And before revealing the banner, they routed division rivals Benjamin Cardozo Lady Judges with a 49-33 win, for victory number 39.
“We are just trying to maintain that,” junior guard Debra Chan said. “Yeah it feels good [to be undefeated.]”
Chan scored 13 points and added four steals against the Lady Judges, and teammate senior Sierra Berkel had a game-high 18 points and 12 rebounds to win the game.
It hasn’t been all winning with the Hawks. They did lose in the quarter finals of the PSAL Division A city playoffs last year, but their regular season record is an accomplishment.
Head coach Lauren Caiaccia attributes the team’s success to their hard work and training off the court.
“We train a lot. We run a lot in practice,” Caiaccia said. “We are ready to go the entire 32 minutes. We kept the intensity up and we also have the experience of winning.”
That intensity proved to be the difference maker in the game against the Lady Judges.
Townsend Harris led by a substantial amount for most of the game. They controlled possession, dominated on defense and almost doubled Cardozo’s score by halftime, 24-13.
But with about five minutes left to play in the fourth quarter, the Lady Judges knocked down two consecutive three-pointers and a layup for an 8-0 run, closing the gap to 37-30.
Then the Hawks returned to their earlier dominating form and finished the game strong with a 12-3 run, led by Berkel.
The senior scored six consecutive points by herself. She started with a layup at the 3:44 mark. Then stole the ball on the ensuing play and scored another layup. Then, on the next possession, Sierra was fouled and nailed both free throws, to advance the lead to 45-30.
“Towards the end of the game we knew what we had to do to get it done,” Berkel said. “We sort of made mistakes in the beginning, but we really wanted to win so we rallied.”
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