Sports

Scognamiglio, Pearl River Surge Past Red Hook

Christa Scognamiglio scored 19 of her 21 points in the third quarter to lead Pearl River to a 59-41 victory over Red Hook in the Class A girls basketball regional final Friday at Mount St. Mary College in Newburgh.

Pearl River senior Christa Scognamiglio sat much of the first half of Friday's Class A regional basketball final against Red Hook with foul trouble.

She quickly made up for lost time in the third quarter.

Scognamiglio scored 13 of her game-high 21 points as Pearl River broke open a close game in the third quarter as the Pirates defeated Red Hook, 59-41, to advance to the state final four for the first time in school history.

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"We just didn't anybody who could match up with her," Red Hook Head Coach Pam White said.

"I knew if we wanted to win, I had to pick it up," Scognamiglio said. "I'm so excited for our team. It's so unreal. It's like we're not really going (to the state semifinals). It's going to be a long week."

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Pearl River will play in the semifinals 3:15 p.m. March 16 at Hudson Valley Community College in Troy, NY against the winner of a 12:30 p.m. Saturday game between Averill Park and Jamesville-DeWitt, also at HVCC-Troy. The championship game will be played 7 p.m. Saturday, March 17.

"This is an awesome thing for the kids," said Pearl River Head Coach Lorraine Moylan, who coached two state and federation champions at Albertus Magnus, but has never been this far in 18 seasons at Pearl River. "This is really a big, big moment."

"It's amazing because we are making history," said senior forward Christy Carty. "This is a great team to do it. This means so much to us because we work so hard."

Carty played a big role in Friday's victory, scoring 16 points and grabbing 14 rebounds for Pearl River (22-3). She was able to take advantage of openings inside when Red Hook (13-7) used a triangle-and-two defense to try to shut down Scognamiglio and Allison Cook.

"We were doing the pick-and-roll and Christa was finding me open and I knew I had to crash the offensive boards," Carty said. "I just wanted this one so bad, so I played really hard."

"Christy Carty gave us an inside presence," Moylan said. "She scored when we needed, but she also defended and I think she ended up with 14 rebounds."

Carty scored eight points in the first half, when the Pirates struggled on both ends. Cook also scored early, making three 3-pointers in the first quarter for all nine of her points. Scognamiglio sat out most of the first quarter and the start of the second with foul trouble and had only two points at the break.

"It was a chance for everyone to step up and they did, especially Christy Carty," Scognamiglio said.

Twice in the second quarter, senior forward Sienna O'Han scored to push Red Hook's lead to six points, the last time at 21-15 with five minutes remaining.

"We knew we weren't playing such good defense in the first half," Carty said. "We had been playing such good defense lately. We just did what we had to do."

That included keeping Red Hook from scoring the final five minutes of the first half. Carty scored three times during that span and Scognamiglio added her only basket of the first half to give the Pirates a 22-21 halftime lead.

"I thought we were kinda lucky being up one," Moylan said. "The kids responded playing without Christa."

The third quarter was more of the same as Pearl River outscored Red Hook, 23-4, to take a commanding 45-25 lead.

"Two kids pretty much killed us in that quarter," White said of Scognamiglio and Carty. "We had a good game plan coming in. it was to get them to take the press off, which they did, and hopefully be able to be composed and run our half-court offense. We never, ever got in the flow of our offense because their half-court defense is very good, too."

White said she kept thinking the Raiders would be able to stop the Pirates' momentum, but they never could.

"We just played our normal defense," Scognamiglio said. "We just played it better in the second half."

Senior forward Kerry Sullivan had four points and nine rebounds for Pearl River. Junior point guard Marissa Scognamiglio contributed five points, six rebounds and five assists.

Julianne Wilkinson led Red Hook with 15 points and Sienna O'Han added 12 for the Raiders.


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