Basketball: Larkin wins pair over Elgin; Maroons’ Castro reaches milestone
While Larkin continued its domination of Elgin High School basketball Friday night winning both the girls and boys varsity contests, the night was still a memorable one for the Elgin girls program.
Maroon senior guard Izzy Castro broke the 1,000-point mark in the girls program for the first time in over two decades.
The Royals won the girls game, 67-32, and the boys contest, 48-26. Both Larkin programs are on a six -year winning streak. The last time Elgin prevailed was in 2018, according to maxpreps.com.
Castro hit the four-digit scoring mark halfway through the first quarter of the Upstate Eight West Division game. Officials at Chesbourough Field House stopped play to honor the senior.
“We are extremely proud of her. She is the first player in 22 years of our girls program to score over 1,000 points,” Elgin coach Kassie Rife said.
Castro, a four-year varsity player, had her own cheering section.
“It was really exciting. I liked that all my friends and teammates from my past teams were here including Doc (former Elgin girls coach Nick Bumbales),” Castro said.
The senior also gave credit to Maroons freshman coach Sara Touhy.
“I was having trouble in the beginning of the season and coach Touhy really helped me fix my shot,” said Castro.
Larkin (8-4, 4-1) had an answer to Castro, who led Elgin (4-9, 1-4) with 15 points. Royals junior Yesenia Escobar drained eight 3-pointers to lead all scorers with 28 points.
“Yesenia came out and shot lights out. She had 7 threes in the first half,” said Larkin coach Stephen Knapp. “W hen you get a player like that, it makes the game a lot easier for my two best players, Mia Carter and Sanaii McPherson.”
Practice paid off for the junior.
“I've been trying to like get a lot of extra reps in and I feel like recently they've been falling,” Escobar said.
Carter (10 points) and McPherson (15) both hit double digits for the Royals. Mahitha Ratakonda chipped in 12 points for the Maroons.
Boys game
Larkin (3-6, 3-2) boys coach Deryn Carter summed up his team’s win in one word.
“Ugly. Yeah, I think that's a good word to describe it,” Carter said. “But we say that there's only two times you don't care how you win, if it's in the playoffs and it's when you play Elgin.”
Elgin (1-11, 0-4) put up a good fight according to the Royals coach.
“This team put us to the test. Hats off to Elgin, they played quite hard.” Carter said. “ I think our guys at times played hard. We just didn't play well. They did a good job against us. We won so I'll take it.”
The game was never in doubt. The Royals held the Maroons scoreless until 2:49 in the first quarter and led 29-9 at halftime.
First-year Elgin coach Kurt Kerrigan felt Larkin’s experience gave it the upper hand.
“We're very young and inexperienced at times so that paid wonders for their press. We played hard but didn't use our brains,” Kerrigan said. “They have a lot of returners coming back and some sophomore studs that came up.”
Larkin junior Jahvion Sowers led all scorers with 11 points. Teammate Lawrence Sallis tallied eight points and pulled down nine rebounds.
Kerrigan praised the play of reserve Lamaree Berry.
“I felt that Lamaree gave some energy off the bench,” said the Elgin coach. “He didn't get in until the third quarter, but he had a little burst of energy that helped us out.”