BROOKVILLE, NY - The Long Island Lutheran Crusaders hosted the Chaminade Flyers in a non-league game on Wednesday night. LuHi is ranked #1 on Long Island and top 10 nationally while Chaminade are the reigning Catholic League Champions and #2 in our rankings. This matchup featured several talented prospects, two excellent coaching staffs and a great first half. Unfortunately for the Flyers they were unable to get anything going in the third while LuHi exploded going onto to 77-45 victory. Here’s our recap.
When the game began the Crusaders started off on a nice 7-0 run sharing the ball and limiting Chaminade to one shot. The Flyers responded getting back-to-back buckets from point guard Mac Kelly ‘23 and guard Greg Cantwell ‘22. Now under 4 minutes left in the quarter and after a pair of Kelly free throws LuHi’s point guard Jayden Pierre ‘22 connected on a pull up jumper. Chaminade seemed ready for the challenge as Cantwell went on a 5-0 run by but Jayden Reid ‘23 responded with two deep threes after the Flyers briefly took the lead.
The quarter ended with LuHi up 17-14 and bother Pierre and Reid showing no signs of slowing down. Reid threw Pierre a beautiful lob for an alley oop that got the crowd off their feet and then connected on another deep three. The Flyers hung tough and leaned on Cantwell who scored plus added two free throws to cut the lead to 4 with just under 4 minutes left in the quarter.
Once the lead was cut to four the Crusaders and Pierre hit another gear getting Chaminade to take bad shots and even cause some turnovers. The Providence commit was fantastic in the first half especially in the second quarter scoring multiple baskets and even getting Cantwell into foul trouble. Flyers got a big 3 from Kelly but Pierre and company started to pull away and found themselves up 37-26 at the half.
The second half of this game was a different story as Long Island Lutheran came out firing going on a huge 17-3 run followed by a 12-2 run to finish the quarter. Chaminade fought hard especially Kelly who finished with a team high 13 points but ran out of gas. The Crusaders were just too much as Jayden Reid put on absolute show hitting threes, getting to the line, and finding open teammates. New transfer Louis Hutchinson ‘22 threw down a nice dunk and had an excellent second half scoring 11 of his 13 to help the Crusaders separate.
Long Island Lutheran was up 66-31 after a huge third quarter. They played tough for the next couple minutes and then both teams emptied out their benches. The final was LuHi 77 Chaminade 45 with Jayden Reid leading all scorers with 25 points and Pierre finishing with 18. The results weren’t what the Flyers wanted but when you take on a national program you must bring your A+ game specially to take these Crusaders down. We look forward to seeing both teams again as we expect them both to have the opportunities to win championships.