88 THE QUEENS COURIER • FEBRUARY 20, 2014 FOR BREAKING NEWS VISIT www.queenscourier.com sports BOYS BASKETBALL TOURNAMENT BY LIAM LA GUERRE lguerre@queenscourier.com/@liamlaguerre At the end of the fi rst half in the February 16 PSAL Queens Borough basketball tournament fi nals, the Benjamin Cardozo boys basketball team was fi rmly leading High School for Construction, 36-26. It was time for Construction’s fi rst-year head coach, Cory Semper, to unleash his team’s secret weapon: a giant bag of Skittles. Popularized by the Super Bowl XLVIII Champion Seattle Seahawks’ running back Marshawn Lynch as “power pellets,” the bite-size, multicolor candy is slowly becoming known to recharge athletes. “The Seattle Seahawks did it, so I said ‘you know what, it might work,’” Semper said. And the Skittles did not fail. The “power of the rainbow” gave the Construction Red Hawks the strength they needed to play more aggressively and outscore their conference rivals Cardozo in the second half, en route to a 65-62 win. Red Hawks (14-2, 3-0 playoffs) senior guard Marlon Alcindor led the way with 25 points, including 10 of 13 from the free throw line. And the Skittles were especially kind to junior Justin Wright-Foreman, who scored 14 of his 23 points in the third quarter alone. So who knew Skittles could be such a powerful weapon? Other than Lynch’s mother, who originally started feeding him “power pellets,” it was Semper’s older brother’s suggestion. Semper refused to try the Skittles for a long time, but fi nally gave in during the fi rst game of the Queens Borough tournament against Francis Lewis to fi x the team’s weak third quarter problems. The second seeded Red Hawks were highly favored to win that game, so the Skittles would have been hard to test. But having dropped two games already against the Cardozo Judges (16-0, 2-1 playoffs) in the regular season, it was a perfect experiment in the fi nals. After the Skittles boost, Construction outscored Cardozo 39-26 in the second half. The Red Hawks controlled the fl ow of the game by taking fewer outside shots and charging to the basket to score in the paint and get to the free throw line. They quickly jumped to a 19-9 run to start the third quarter and tie the game, 45-45, and battled from there for the win. “We just had the strategy of coming in and playing hard,” Wright-Foreman said. “When we were down 10 in the third quarter it was 0-0 to us.” The win marks Semper’s second Queens Borough title in as many years, with two different schools. Now the Red Hawks are setting their sights on the city title, and Semper said they are bringing a bag of Skittles with them. THE COURIER/Photos by Liam La Guerre High School for Construction defeated Ben Cardozo to capture the Queens Borough championship. High School for Construction coach Cory Semper won his second consecutive Queens Borough basketball title.
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