Northport Lady Tigers clamp down in second half to beat Lindenhurst
By Steven Zaitz
The Northport Lady Tigers basketball team took a road trip to Orlando, Florida, over the Christmas break.
While there, they got to play against schools from other parts of the country, bond as teammates during long bus rides, and even enjoy a bit of what Disney World has to offer.
Freshman point guard Ava DeMarco, who may have had trouble with the height requirements of some of the rides at Disney, played a huge role coming off the bench in Northport’s 47-31 win over Lindenhurst last Saturday morning, Jan. 13.
DeMarco is barely five feet tall, depending upon how she is wearing her hair. But what she lacks in size, she more than makes up for in quickness, grit, tenacity, and determination. She scored seven points and added four assists against the Lady Bulldogs, but those numbers tell only a fraction of the story.
Lindenhurst sophomore sensation Emma Burmeister ranks fifth in Suffolk County, averaging over 20 points per game. Burmeister did not disappoint on Saturday against Northport as she exploded for 16 points in the first half. That was when longtime Northport head coach Richard Castellano came up with a new plan.
“We had a bunch of different girls trying to defend her [Burmeister] in the first half. At halftime, I told Ava to shadow her, go wherever she goes, and faceguard her,” said Castellano, who recorded his 743rd career win as Lady Tiger coach. “Ava played Emma really well and made her work for everything. She doesn’t back down from any challenge.”
“I take a lot of pride in my defense, and I feel really good that Coach Castellano has the confidence in me to guard the other team’s best player,” DeMarco said.
Burmeister was held to only nine points in the third and fourth quarters. The rest of her team had only six for the entire game.
But it wasn’t as if the Lady Tigers were lighting up the scoreboard like Magic Kingdom fireworks either. There was a prolonged stretch in the third quarter when the score seemed frozen at 32-27 in favor of the Tigers. Turnovers and held balls detained the basketball inside the middle third of the court, as both teams struggled to shake off the early morning start time.
“It got sloppy,” Castellano said. “Both teams were still sleeping a little bit but were able to wake up in the fourth quarter.
Tiger senior forward and captain Brooke Kershow, who led the team with 18 points, hit a running one-hander and DeMarco followed by driving the lane for two, giving the Tigers a 38-31 lead with under five minutes remaining in the game.
“Brooke carried us offensively in the fourth quarter,” Castellano said. “She hit a few shots that were able to turn the momentum in our favor.”
Senior captain Kennedy Radziul, who was not feeling her best, still found winning ways to contribute. In the third quarter, as Lindenhurst had cut the Northport lead to four and was looking to slice into even further, Radziul stepped into the passing lane and deflected a ball that went out of bounds off of Bulldog Nina Tantillo. Radziul capitalized moments later with a spinner in the lane. She scored 10 points in the game.
“Kennedy is a gamer. She will never tell me that she’s not feeling 100%, but I can see it in her face,” Castellano said. “I coached her mom, and I coached her aunt, so I can tell pretty easily. I told her to give me as much as you can for as long as you can, and that’s exactly what she did.”
Radziul’s mother is Northport basketball legend Kimberly Ruck Radziul, who, in the early 1990’s, was a member of six consecutive Suffolk County championship teams at Northport. Kimberly’s sister, Cami, Kennedy’s aunt, was a member of four of those teams.
Northport is 4-1 in conference play, and Lindenhurst is 2-3. Both teams, along with the rest of the league, are staring up in wonderment at Commack, who at the time of this writing, is 6-0 in conference play and 12-0 overall. The Lady Cougars beat the Tigers in Commack earlier this season, 39-32 and they will meet again in the beginning of February.
“We are coming together as a team now, and going down to Florida really gave us time to gel,” Castellano said. “We were already very tight as a team, but I think we still really grew during that trip.”
“I loved the experience of going down there, and I think it was really great for team chemistry,” DeMarco said. “And yes, I was able to go on the rides.”
