SCC Rallies; Streak at 38
By Tom Rock
NEWSDAY STAFF WRITER
February 1, 2004
Aaron Cummings had 10 assists, but on the most crucial play of the game,
he wasn't thinking pass. The Suffolk CC-Selden point guard's usual targets
were unavailable - Maurice Manning was on the bench after fouling out and
Marcele Street was aggressively defended - so he decided to do the job himself.
With 20 seconds left in the game and the shot clock trickling down to 2,
Cummings released a soft floater along the baseline that fell through the
rim and gave Suffolk a one-point lead over Monroe College. A steal by Vernon
Alonzo and a dunk by Street with one second remaining capped the Clippers'
thrilling 104-101 NJCAA victory at Mount St. Michael High School in the
Bronx.
Suffolk trailed by 14 early in the second half - its largest deficit of
the season - before extending its winning streak to 38 games, the longest
in the country. Suffolk shot an astounding 26-for-36 in the second half and
needed every bucket.
"We knew this was a big game," Cummings said of Monroe, a Division I scholarship
program and perhaps the most serious impediment to the streak on the Suffolk
schedule this season. Suffolk is in Division III.
"People ask me all the time, 'What's the streak up to now?' and we just
try not to think about it at all," Cummings said. "We do know what it's up
to; we just don't talk about it much."
They'll be talking about this game for a while. Suffolk (20-0) led 10-1
after the first two minutes thanks to seven straight misses by Monroe (16-8).
The teams were even through much of the half before Monroe ended it with an
11-0 run for a 51-41 lead.
"These guys have been through so much the last two years, sometimes a look
or body language is almost better than a timeout," Suffolk coach Rich Wrase
said of his decision to pantomime his frustration with folded arms and disgusted
stares rather than yells from the sideline. "They seem to feed off of that.
They know what to do."
Suffolk began chipping away at the lead midway through the second half.
It was down to five with 10 minutes left, and a 7-0 run closed the gap to
one point with 6:53 remaining. Suffolk took its first lead of the second half
at 87-86 on two free throws by Alonzo with 6:08 remaining, and the game was
a battle the rest of the way.
Street led with 27 points and Cummings hit 9 of 10 shots and scored 20
points. The Clippers had only six players score, but each was in double
figures. Garfield Johns scored 32 points for Monroe.
Last year Suffolk beat Monroe in double overtime on its way to a national
championship. "We've had some close ones," Wrase said.
The Clippers have nine games left before the Region XV Tournament at the
end of the month, and few figure to be as close as this one was.
Copyright © 2004, Newsday, Inc.
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