No miracles for Lady Dukes against Lourdes

By Mike Zummo
Posted 1/26/23

In the end, the Our Lady of Lourdes Warriors brought too much Simone Pelish for the Marlboro girls’ basketball team to handle.

Pelish scored a game-high 45 points, sending the Dukes reeling …

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No miracles for Lady Dukes against Lourdes

Posted

In the end, the Our Lady of Lourdes Warriors brought too much Simone Pelish for the Marlboro girls’ basketball team to handle.

Pelish scored a game-high 45 points, sending the Dukes reeling to a 77-38 Mid-Hudson Athletic League loss on Friday at Marlboro High School.

“Definitely too much Simone,” Marlboro coach Gary Trapani said. “She’s the best player in the league. She can score it well. She’s bigger, faster and stronger than anybody. We had to guard her. We went out, we fought as hard as we could, and that’s all I can ask of my girls.”

After posting victories over the Rondout Valley Ganders and Spackenkill Spartans, the Dukes have lost four straight games to divisional rival Red Hook, and MHAL Division I opponents Wallkill and FDR, and now Our Lady of Lourdes. They lost to Red Hook by five points and by two to the Presidents but lost by 35 to the Panthers.

“Division I’s never easy,” Trapani said. “We hung in there with FDR, and lost by two. Wallkill got us pretty good, and these guys got us good, but the good news is we don’t have to play them again, and we know we’re just trying to keep building and this is a good learning experience for the girls.”

The Dukes hung on against the Warriors in the first quarter, as they only trailed by four points after the game’s first eight minutes, only down 19-14 after the game’s first eight minutes.

But the Warriors exploded in the second quarter, outscoring the Dukes 30-7 in the second quarter to take a 49-21 halftime lead. That’s when Pelish did most of her damage, scoring 20 of her 32 points in the period.

“The first quarter was good,” Trapani said. “We were down five and then we struggled. We struggled handling the pressure, we rushed a little bit, got a little nervous, didn’t make the pass fakes like we hoped they would, and didn’t survey the court. It’s a learning process.”

Jackie Kozakiewicz was the only other Warrior to reach double digits with 12 points.

Gabby Murphy led Marlboro with 20 points and Hannah Palumbo added 11, seven of which came from the free-throw line.

“I think the moral lesson here is that no matter who you’re playing, you play hard,” Trapani said. “You’ve got to play hard.”

With their win over New Paltz and Rondout, they are one divisional win away from qualifying for the Section 9 Class B tournament at the end of February. They’ll head back into divisional play on February 3 when they host the New Paltz Huguenots.

“We’re not going to face teams like Wallkill and Lourdes,” Trapani said. “So, we can go do different things, and try to be a bit more seasoned.”