Mattituck wins boys hoops county crown

Sometimes first impressions can be off base. When Mattituck High basketball coach Paul Ellwood first saw his team in October, he wasn’t certain what he had.

“After the first couple weeks, I went home to my wife, and I was like, ‘I don’t know if we’re going win a game,’“ he said. “At Thanksgiving, she said to me, ‘You’re going to be okay.’ I’m like, ‘How do you know?’ She said, ‘I can tell you like these guys.’ I said, ‘Well, liking them and winning with them are two different things.’ But we were able to get it done.”

The Tuckers certainly did, defeating a tough Port Jefferson team for the Suffolk County Class B championship in a 58-50 victory at St. Joseph’s University in Patchogue on Sunday.

After securing the program’s first county crown since 2011, Mattituck (9-9) will face the Nassau County winners in the Long Island championship game Sunday, March 16, at 2 p.m. at Farmingdale State.

“Just a lot of hard work paying off,” said senior guard Owen Searl, who matched two freshmen, his brother Connor Searl and Antonio Sparacio, with a team-high 13 points. “This team’s been through a lot. We’ve been challenged, been through some adversity. … A lot of emotions. It was such a fun game and just a joy to be out here.”

Senior Justin Fox, who scored 12 points, agreed.

“It’s really just more exciting for everyone on this team,” he said. “It’s nice to see all the work you put in pay off and celebrating with our fans. Our whole school came down supporting us. It was a tough battle, but we stayed together.”

After scoring a career-high 43 points in a 76-48 victory over Port Jefferson (6-14) on Feb. 6, Owen Searl knew the Royals would devise a plan to shut him down. Ryan Sommerstad (team high 14 points) defended Searl man-to-man, holding him to two points over three quarters.

“In order to win championships, it takes the entire team. It’s not just one person,” Searl said. “It was tough, but we got the job done today, and that’s all that matters.”

“He locked him down pretty good,” Ellwood said. “But we just took what they gave us.”

Which turned out to be a defensive mismatch as Fox was being guarded by a smaller player.

“He’s not really one of our scorers, but we took advantage of that,” Ellwood said of Fox. “Everyone else picked up Owen. We had four guys in double digits. That’s just sharing the ball. When four guys are scoring, you’ve got to play straight-up defense. You can’t cheat off them.”

It was a nip-and-tuck affair for most of the game.

Connor Searl sank two foul shots with 5:36 remaining to give the Tuckers a 38-36 lead they would never relinquish. Fox drove in for a basket and Owen Searl hit a layup and converted a free throw to give Mattituck a 43-36 advantage a minute later. The Tuckers held the Royals scoreless for the opening five minutes of the period, until Sommerstad’s driving bucket.

With Mattituck holding a 47-41 lead with 1:13 left, the game turned into a chess match and a test of nerves on the foul line.

Port Jeff would score a basket and then immediately foul. The Tuckers converted 11 of 14 attempts down the stretch and went 19 for 25 (76%) overall from the line.

Owen Searl, who scored 11 points in the quarter, put away six of his eight attempts. Sparacio coverted on five of six tries.

“We were struggling in the beginning of the year,” Ellwood said. “The last two days, we spent 40 minutes shooting foul shots. We did more foul shooting than anything else. It’s hard to take yourself away from doing X’s and O’s, but when you’re making foul shots at the end of the game, you’re glad you practiced them.”

There was little doubt that Ellwood has a lot of confidence in his freshmen as Oakley Carr-Smith, Connor Searl and Sparacio saw valuable minutes in the final quarter.

“Huge credit to Connor and Antonio coming through in the fourth with some clutch baskets,” Owen Searl said.

“It speaks a lot to his confidence,” the younger Searl said of his big brother. “He knows how much confidence all of us have. It’s also on the team leaders for making us feel that confident.”

Ellwood is enjoying the moment.

“The kids always keep on teasing me, ‘Are we the best team you ever had coached?’ ” he said. “I said ‘No, because we’ve had a lot of really good teams in the last 10 years that haven’t won it.’”

“This is not the best team I’ve coached,” Ellwood said, “but it’s the best story.”