Leading off today: Senior Brandon Jacobs scored 23 points to lead
Long Island Lutheran past Mount Vernon 67-57 basketball semifinals at the Glens Falls Civic Center on Friday.
Junior Donatas Kupsas added 17 points and senior Chris Coalmon tacked on 16 for the Crusaders, who will return Saturday to play Abraham Lincoln in the title game.
Mount Vernon's Greg Calixte scored 15 of his 20 points in the first half. Teammate Noah Morgan added 18.
Mount Vernon had led 32-30 at halftime. A Coalmon 3-pointer put LuHi in front 40-36 midway through the third quarter. A subsequent Jacobs 3-pointer in the quarter put the Crusaders ahead for good.
Kupsas took charge in the fourth quarter with eight of his 17 points.
"Once we got the lead I thought there was no way they were coming back," said Coalmon, who committed to Robert Morris this week. "We were putting the foot on the gas and we didn't stop."
Gregory Calixte led Mount Vernon with 20 points, and Noah Morgan added 18 points.
Long Island Lutheran boys coach John Buck discusses getting back to business in the Federation semifinals at the Glens Falls Civic Center vs. Mount Vernon after a month between games.
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• Abraham Lincoln took charge in the second quarter and then held off Cardinal Hayes 56-47 to advance.
Mike Reid scored 17 points -- including the PSAL champions' first 10 after intermission -- and Donald Cannon-Flores added 15 for the Railsplitters, who won the most recent of their four Federation titles in 2008.
Cannon-Flores made three foul shots and scored on a driving layup in the final minute to fight off a final surge from Hayes.
Lincoln outrebounded Hayes 45-29 in the game, getting 11 boards each from Curtis Gordon and Kclejuan Brown and nine by Cannon-Flores.
Lincoln took over with a 14-1 run in the second quarter on its way to a 26-19 halftime lead.
"I've been saying all year our guys are deep when it comes to defense. Sometimes we slip on offense, but I can put 10 guys out there," Lincoln coach Dwayne "Tiny" Morton told The Post-Star.
Joe Toussaint led the Cardinals with 17 points.
Girls Class AA: After PSAL championships at Madison Square Garden followed by losses to Christ the King and Ossining in previous trips upstate, South Shore is on the cusp of a Federation title after a 58-53 win over Long Island Lutheran.
"We've always been about going to the Garden," junior Earlette Scott told News12Varsity after scoring a game-high 28 points on the strength of 16-of-18 work from the foul line. "But losing two years in a row (in the Federation tournament) we decided to make this our goal."
LuHi raced to a 16-4 lead at the end of the first quarter, but South Shore switched into an aggressive 1-2-2 zone that frustrated the Crusaders' guards.
"When the game became a half-court game I think we got stressed a bit," LuHi coach Rich Slater said. "We were complacent, we weren't aggressive and we became stagnant.'
• Danielle Patterson scored 18 points and Kania Pollock 16 as The Mary Louis Academy advanced to the final with a 59-49 win over Baldwin. Vanerlie Valcourt scored 12 points to go with 14 rebounds.
