Varsity Insider

You read my buildup last week about Friday’s league showdown between Eastchester and Tuckahoe. Both teams entered with one loss and were, for all intents and purposes, tied atop their league.

You probably saw that Tuckahoe grabbed control with a 64-55 victory. But what many missed was the crushing injury that will take a toll on Eastchester going forward.

In the game’s opening minutes, the Eagles lost freshman point guard Jack Daly when he fell hard on his left wrist on a breakaway. Daly fractured two bones in his wrist and will be out the remainder of the season.

“It was a big loss,” Eastchester coach Fred DiCarlo told me Saturday morning. “It will be a big change for us.”

Daly’s injury was the topic that led my Sunday notebook. It was crushing to the Eagles for so many reasons. First, they have had such a strong season despite having a junior (Dave Solano) as their go-to player and a freshman (Daly) as their lead playmaker. Also, Daly had already grabbed control of the team just five months into high school and 12 games into his first season on varsity, which is no small feat.

Eastchester will miss Daly’s 10.5 ppg — good for second on the team — but the team will miss his ability to dictate the offense the most, DiCarlo said. Senior Joe Ryan slid over from two-guard to assume ball-handling duties and thrived, leading the team in scoring and helping keep the game close despite Solano missing a large portion of the second half with four fouls. DiCarlo expects Ryan to continue to serve as the chief playmaker without Daly.

I also have a note about North Rockland’s buzzer-beating victory at Pearl River, when Armando Castillo silenced the Pirate faithful in a 59-56 win. Coach Chris Roff told me his team trailed the whole game before finally coming to life in the fourth quarter. A big moment was a thunderous dunk by Kareighn Joseph. He earned a tech for hanging on the rim, but Roff said it really help shift the momentum.

And a major positive from Saturday: The Coaches vs. Cancer Week Tip-Off run by the coaches association at Brewster raised $1,571 for Coaches vs. Cancer.