It’s not often that you hear the visiting team’s crowd overpower the home stands.
That was the case Friday night in the Class B playoff matchup between No. 4 Mattituck and No. 5 Southold/Greenport.
Throughout the game, a group of Southold fans echoed varied chants among a quiet home crowd at Mattituck High School.
“It’s not right,” Tuckers head coach Steve Van Dood said. “That’s not how it should be on our home floor.”
But it served as motivation because after a close-fought first quarter that ended 16-11 in Mattituck’s favor, it was all Tuckers the rest of the way as they ended the Clippers’ season by the score of 56-36.
“It’s really weird seeing the banner that says ‘Home of the Tuckers’ and you hear them yelling ‘Southold’,” Mattituck point guard Katie Hoeg said. “But it helped keep us motivated.”
Hoeg led the way for the Tuckers producing a double-double by scoring 15 points and hauling in 10 rebounds. She also had six assists in the blowout.
“She does it all the time,” Van Dood said. “You might as well call her Katie double-double Hoeg.”
She was guarded for the most part by Southold’s Madison Tabor who looked about half her size.
“It’s deffinetly different having her guard me,” Hoeg said. “She’s really good and she got some steals on me so that’s something I need to work on too.”
Mattituck’s key to the game defensively was to stop Tabor or at least limit her scoring. She scored 16 points to lead the Clippers but it wasn’t a performance she was too proud of.
“Nobody could score for us tonight,” Clippers coach Howie Geismar said. “Madison was even having trouble putting it the basket. Most of her points came from the foul line.”
“I couldn’t hit a shot tonight,” Tabor said. “I don’t know why. It wasn’t nerves or anything like that. My shot just wasn’t falling.”
Every time the Clippers tried to string together a few unanswered points, the Tuckers put together a run of their own. Liz Dwyer was instrumental down the stretch, converting free throw opportunities into points. She finished with 15 points.
Mattituck’s Courtney Murphy put on a show in the first quarter, hitting shots left and right totaling 11 points in the process.
“I told her before the game, her best basketball is yet to come,” Van Dood said of Murphy. “She came right in and gave us the spark we needed.”
Otherwise, Van Dood thought that his team came out flat, keeping the Clippers in the game.
“We showed what we really can do in the second half,” Van Dood said. “We can’t come out flat like that to start any game.”
Southold (9-8) still accomplished a lot this season and ultimately “there’s nothing to hang your head about,” Geismar emphasized in the post-game speech.
“Nobody picked us to make the playoffs,” Geismar said. “We won the three out of our last four games to finish second in our league. We start one freshman, three sophomores and one senior, our best is yet to come. We’ll be back.”
Southold also had huge contributions from Angelica Klavas who scored eight points and freshman Grace Syron who scored eight points, grabbed 10 boards and came up with a team-leading seven steals.
Mattituck (10-9) will travel to No. 1 Hampton Bays on Monday with a tip off time of 5 p.m. Admission is $4.
“We already lost to Hampton Bays twice this season but I think we’re going to put that in the back of our heads,” Hoeg said. “We’re going back for revenge.
Photos by David Benthal
