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Doherty, Sachem East shine on 'Kaz Night'
Lake Ronkonkoma, NY – It was “Kaz Night” on Saturday afternoon as the Sachem School District retired the jersey of one of the best basketball players in the history of Long Island, Nicole Kaczmarski, during halftime of Sachem East’s 57-36 victory over Sachem North.
In a truly wonderful ceremony by Sachem School District and MSG Varsity, MSG Varsity commentator and reporter Nicole Kaczmarski had her number 23 risen to the rafters inside the gym of Sachem North. “Kaz” finished her career as the second-highest point scorer in the history of Long Island girls basketball at 2,583 only behind Garden City’s Bethany LeSeur’s 3,167. A wonderful side note to this ceremony was that both Shayla Cosgrove of Sachem North and Jamie Doherty of Sachem East gave up their number 23 jerseys in respect to Kaczmarski.
In the game, another terrific scorer in Sachem history took over the game in the second quarter. Meagan Doherty scored seven points in the second as her team took a commanding lead at the end of the first half. Doherty who surpassed the 1,000-point mark Friday night versus William Floyd, added 16 more points to her career total as her Flaming Arrow team cruised to their 21 point victory and improved their record to 6-1 on the season.
The score at halftime, 33-17, was not very indicative of the close battle that these two had during the first half. In fact, for most of the first quarter the Northern Arrows held the lead. However, a seven-point effort by Meagan’s cousin Kristen Doherty gave her team the lead late in the quarter.
The pace of this game was incredibly fast, especially the second quarter where the Eastern Arrows really began to take over.
East used suffocating defense in the form of the full-court press to force multiple turnovers and get easy transition buckets. This form of defense proved to be quite effective, because before you knew it East went on a 13-1 run to start the quarter. Six different scorers in the second quarter for the Eastern Arrows, but none more important to infuse into the scoring was senior Meagan Doherty. Her seven points sparked the run, but Kathleen Everson’s five points were very important to the success of her squad as well.
Not to be forgotten was the effort that the Northern Arrows gave in trying to keep their team in the game against the superior Eastern Arrows. Erin McNulty and Danielle Levine led the way for North with 12 and 14 points respectively.
However, in the end it was Sachem East coming away with the 57-36 victory.
Follow Bill on Twitter @MSGVBillMueller
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