The clock is ticking for this team.
Half Hollow Hills East is looking to rewrite history in the Long Island boys AAA basketball championship against Port Washington on Sunday after being eliminated by buzzer-beaters — one in last year’s LI title game at Farmingdale State College — in each of the past two seasons.
“When we go in [to Farmingdale], the wound just opens up again,” senior center Jordan Cador told The Post after beating William Floyd, 57-40, to win back-to-back Suffolk County titles last weekend.
“It was a really close game around the half.
We got the flashbacks of what could have been and we started to pull away after that, motivated by what we didn’t want to happen again.”
Two seasons ago, a first-round game against Floyd began an extremely frustrating trend when the Red Hawks lost on a last-second shot, 57-55. Last year, after HHH won Suffolk County over Smithtown West, 43-40, a mighty Elmont squad did the same and won the LI championship, 53-51.
“We cut no corners, we wanted to be prepared this year,” coach Mike Marcelin said of his 20-3 squad, whose season truly began a day after losing to Elmont last March.
“We’ve been putting in the work [in the] offseason — the guys have been in the gym nonstop. They matured their game on and off the court. We’ve developed, and I think we’re just growing as a team.”
The Red Hawks started with several summer leagues and camps, according to Marcelin, who then intentionally scheduled brutally tough out-of-conference matchups to test his team’s grit.
They battled Long Island Lutheran — where Carmelo Anthony’s son, Kiyan, stands out — and Eagle Academy II of Brooklyn, and fell to another buzzer-beater against DeWitt Clinton in The Bronx.
Nevertheless, their only three losses, which Marcelin called an important dish of “humble pie,” led to double-digit victories in all of the Red Hawks’ playoff games.
Flocking together
Facing a higher level of competition isn’t all that’s changed this year on the North Shore, according to the players.
“Last year during practice, you could see a divide … the seniors were having their own thing, the juniors were, too,” Cador said. “This year, everybody’s on the same page, and that has made us so much better than we were last year.”
The emotional side of team building also has been a priority of their coach, who, along with his staff, are all alumni of the school’s program.
Throughout the year, Marcelin took his players bowling and did other fun events to loosen up the guys and have them bond.
“The freshmen, the sophomores, they all bought in,” senior point guard Brandon Varlack said. “We even all went to McDonald’s right after we won the Suffolk title.”
Head for the hills
Fun and games aside, the close-knit crew — they call themselves “East Side” — knows there is mental and physical work to be done before 1:30 p.m. Sunday in Farmingdale.
Cador said the team must have watched last year’s buzzer-beater “a thousand times over” for motivation this time around.
“It’s time to make new memories,” junior shooting guard Skyler Ellis said. “Erase what happened in the past and move on to the present.”
The week before Sunday’s title game, HHH was even dedicating practice time to buzzer-beater drills.
“You have to stay ready so you don’t have to get ready,” Marcelin said. “We know what it takes to get there now, we know what it takes to win.”
