Girls basketball: Kayleigh Heckel blows past 1,000-point milestone in Port Chester win

MAMARONECK – The first 1,000 points were memorable. The last three points were remarkable.

Kayleigh Heckel upstaged her own milestone Thursday, dropping three free throws with 1.4 seconds to play, giving Port Chester a memorable 68-67 comeback win over Kennedy Catholic in the opening round of the Keith D. Yizar Memorial Tournament.

The sophomore point guard only needed 33 games to reach 1,000.

“I’m going to remember that it was a team effort,” Heckel said. “My teammates found me when I was open. And it was a really good game to get it in because we pulled out a win at the end. It was close. It was fun."

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The Rams were down 48-38 heading into the fourth, but opened the quarter with a 15-3 run and took a 53-51 lead with 4:17 to play after Heckel found Jenna Provenzano for an easy bucket.

Momentum was suddenly wearing blue and white.

Three minutes later, the Gaels seemed to have stalled the comeback. Madison Lopez came up with a steal and layup to give Kennedy a 64-59 lead, but Port Chester got feisty. Provenzano started the closing run with a pair of must-have free throws with 55.8 seconds to play. Heckel then scored the Rams’ last seven points, finishing with 20 in the fourth quarter.

“I mean, whatever has to get done for this team to win,” she said.

Port Chester has struggled for a number of seasons, but is off to a 6-0 start and will return on Saturday at 4 p.m. to play host Mamaroneck in the title game.

“That was really cool,” Provenzano said. “We haven’t won in a while so the last couple of years have been hard. Now we have a great group of girls. We love Kayleigh. She’s an all-around athlete, so we expect things like that from her. Starting out his way is great and it’s fun to brag to everyone about it.”

Turning point

Heckel closed the deficit to 64-63 with 43.9 seconds to play, but Samantha Johnson got a quick layup at the other end. Heckel attacked the rim and promptly answered.

The Rams had to foul twice in the closing seconds to stop the clock and Caroline Selinger extended the Kennedy lead to 67-65 with 4.3 seconds remaining.

Heckel went for the 3 from the left wing and was fouled.

“This is my seventh year coaching here and this is the moment we’ve been training for,” said Port Chester assistant Jamie Florindi, who is calling the plays while head coach Danny Davis is in quarantine. “And to have an athlete like Kayleigh out there who can take control of the game, yet get other girls involved, she knows the game so well and knows her teammates so well. There’s a lot of camaraderie. You would never know Kayleigh is a sophomore because of the way she carries herself on and off the floor. She feels comfortable around these girls and you can tell. She feels comfortable with her coaches, myself and Danny. It’s an honor to watch her growth and I know she’s only going to go up from here.”

Player of the game

Heckel fell short of a triple-double for the first time this season, but did manage 53 points, 11 rebounds and six steals. Her fourth block came on the Gaels’ final desperation shot.

By the numbers

Port Chester (6-0): Provenzano finished with seven points. … Yanairis Tejada got two critical fourth-quarter baskets in the paint. … Taylor Martin grabbed 10 rebounds. … Madison Ostrowski, a double-double machine for the Rams, was out with a shoulder issue. … Heckel’s 1,000th point came on a first-quarter free throw.

Kennedy (3-2): Lopez had 15 points. … Johnson added 11 points. … Taylor Malone finished with 10 points. … Meaghan Dougherty had nine points. … Madison Carlo got eight points.

Quotable

“Winning has been really exciting,” Heckel said. “We’d like to win a lot of games this season, because we haven’t been able to do that in the past and I think it’s a special team we have this year. This has been a goal I’ve had since I started playing. I really wanted to get to 1,000 points. Hopefully I can get a lot more.”

Mike Dougherty covers boys soccer, boys lacrosse, girls basketball and golf for The Journal News/lohud.com. He can be reached at mdougher@lohud.com, or on Twitter @hoopsmbd, @lohudlacrosse, @lohudhoopsmbd and @lohudgolf.

This article originally appeared on Rockland/Westchester Journal News: Kayleigh Heckel scores 53 in Port Chester's 68-67 win over Kennedy