Lady Cyclones' Bigs Dominate Interior, Beat Hewlett 62-36

After building a 33-19 halftime lead, the South Side girl's basketball team pumped up the defensive pressure, and used its superior size advantage to dismantle the Hewlett Bulldogs, 62-36 on Tuesday night at Hewlett High School.

The Lady Cyclones used several defensive fronts and its interior size advantage to confuse the Bulldogs, forcing turnovers that led to scoring runs of 11-0 and 11-2 for South Side.

Despite the overwhelming advantage the Lady Cyclones had in the paint — blocking most of Hewlett's attempts — South Side coach Katelyn Dunn said she believes the best is yet to come from her bigs.

"The size is going to benefit us as we go along, but I don't think they recognize just how big they are, yet," she said. "We're going to watch some film and try to utilize our post more in the future."

Her counterpart Bulldog coach Tommy Johnson disagreed, and despite scouting his opponent well, still had no answer for South Side's interior presence.

"They have so much size, we just couldn't match up," he said. "We knew exactly what we had to do, we had watched them, we just couldn't. They threw three types of defenses at us. With their size, you can't work in-and-out and that kills an offense."

With leading scorer Megan Lonergan on the bench for most of the second half, the Lady Cyclones got contributions from every player on the roster. Brianna McNally took over the scoring duties, putting up 14 points.

While McNally filled up the score sheet, it was two underclassmen that caught their coach's eye on in the blowout.

"[Sophomore] Bridget [Kiernan] was going after the ball all game," Dunn said. "She is definitely going to be a sub for our inside guys this year, but she is the future of this team after Megan leaves."

Dunn said she was also impressed with freshman Juliana Jadjiyane, a wiry and quick defender who spent as much time on the floor diving for loose balls as she did dribbling down it.

"She's our freshman," she said. "She beats herself up a little bit too much, but it was great there to see her get some confidence. She's a tough defender, and I'm happy she got some consistency on offense today."

South Side will put its undefeated league record on the line in a pivotal league game at home Friday against fellow undefeated foe Lynbrook. The game figures to go a long way toward deciding the eventual league champion, and Dunn said she isn't taking the Owls lightly.

"That is going to be a huge conference game for us, and they will likely be undefeated as well going in," she said. "It is going to be a tough challenge for us to rise to."