On this day nine years ago, the girls’ basketball team won the Long Island Championship for the second time in three years. Danielle Spiliotis was sensational with 27 points while Brannon Burke (8), Jess Winston (8), Alex Angove (3), and Donna Liotine (2) rounded out the scoring for the Bears.

When the girls made their triumphant return to the Quad, the whole community was on the Carson Auditorium steps waiting to welcome them, and their newly minted title, home.

Here is the recap of the game from Corey McLaughlin of Newsday.

_____________________________________________________________

Spiliotis Gets the Last Word; Senior’s 27 Leads Stony Brook Girls to LI Championship

At the game’s most intense moments near the end of the fourth quarter, Danielle Spiliotis exchanged verbal barbs with Oyster Bay’s Jazzmyne Sangster as they ran down court following a Stony Brook miss.

It seemed out of character for Spiliotis, especially since the 6-1 Stony Brook senior was calmly knocking down one turnaround jumper after another on her way to 27 points. But she said she had a valid reason for the back-and-forth.

“I’m trying to win the game and I’m getting shoved and pushed the whole time,” she said after Stony Brook defeated Oyster Bay, 48-42, yesterday at C.W. Post to win the Long Island Class C girls’ basketball title. “I had to talk and try to stay firm.”

Spiliotis surely did that. After the spat, which happened with Stony Brook ahead 42-40 with 2:48 to go, she scored the Bears’ final six points – four with her trademark jumper – to seal it. Spiliotis also had nine of Stony Brook’s 12 points in the fourth.

Stony Brook (17-4), which is without second-leading scorer Sadie Singer (ACL) for the rest of the playoffs, will play in a state quarterfinal at 5:30pm Friday at Hofstra. The Bears face the winner of Haldane (Section I)-Tuxedo (IX), a game which will be played tonight.

Spiliotis took advantage of Oyster Bay’s lack of height. The Baymen have no starter taller than 5-7. She started off 5-for-6 in the paint and the trend continued. Still, Oyster Bay (18-4) never trailed by more than nine points (39-30 with 6:49 to go), and even that lead was eventually erased by a four-minute, 10-3 Baymen run. But Spiliotis just proved to be too much.

“We did our best to try to stop her from touching the ball, but she’s going to find a way to score,” Oyster Bay coach Dave Stein said. “We’re small. We did what we could.”

Joshlyn Grant (17 points) and Isabelle Mirman (12) led the Baymen, who were geared on offense to stay away from Spiliotis, who also had an impact defensively with six blocks.

“We play her outside a lot during the year because some teams we face have a lot of height inside,” Stony Brook coach Keith Singer said. “But Oyster Bay isn’t a big team so we were able to get the ball in to her. She had a great game today.”

_____________________________________________________________