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A Tough Knight for Adelphi: Queens claws Panthers

By Dylan Butler

Knights coach Kyrk Peponakis walked to the dry erase board in the team's locker room at halftime and wrote one word – “tough.”Tough. It's how Adelphi won 13 straight New York Collegiate Athletic Conference games. They're not bigger, they're not better shooters, they're just tougher.But in the second half, it was the Knights who were tough, much tougher than the host Panthers. Queens outscored Adelphi by 21 in the final 20 minutes of the game and cruised to a 68-55 win Wednesday night at Woodruff Hall in Garden City, L.I.”We've just been tougher than teams, we've been more disciplined than teams, we've executed offense better than teams, we've done all the little things it is to be good,” Adelphi coach James Cosgrove said. “In 20 minutes they did all those things to us and we did none of them.”With Sikiric on the end of the bench, finally succumbing to a groin injury that has limited his effectiveness the last seven games, sophomores Hassan Washington and Bradd Wierzbicki were tough.Washington had 19 points, shooting 6-of-7 from the field and the foul line. He limped off the court with 3:30 left in the second half after rolling his left ankle but returned two minutes later and went 4-for-4 from the foul line in the final 1:17.”I told coach if he needed me to go back in I was alright,” Washington said. “It's not broken or anything. I could still run on it a little bit.”Wierzbicki, a 6-foot-3 string bean from Maspeth, filled the scoring void left by Sikiric. He had 17 points in 37 minutes, including a 3-pointer with 4:14 left in the second half to give Queens a 55-45 lead.”Johnny's been great for us all year and he can't do it every night,” Wierzbicki said. “We have to realize that if he's not having a game, someone else has to step up.”And maybe no one was tougher than Sikiric, who was still wincing on the bench when Peponakis called him into action after Clyde Chapman picked up two fouls – his fourth and fifth – in a two second span with five minutes left in the second half.Queens (16-6, 14-5 NYCAC) led 50-45 at the time and Sikiric immediately made a contribution. His screen near the top of the key freed Washington for an easy layup down the middle of the lane. And after Wierzbicki drained a 3-pointer from the top of the key, the senior captain drew a charge on Adelphi's James Samuels.”I could run up and down the court, I couldn't go laterally,” said Sikiric, who scored his only point of the game from the foul line with 52.5 seconds left. “All (Peponakis) was asking me to do was rebound the ball and that's what I was trying to do.”Led by Eric Martin, who had 24 points and 20 rebounds, Adelphi (18-4, 17-2) extended its 8-point halftime lead to 10 in the opening three minutes of the second half. But Queens went on a 16-4 run – all with Sikiric on the bench – to take a 41-39 lead on an Anthony Mauceri layup.It was two of 41 points scored by Queens' guards. The Knights shot 55.6 percent from the field in the game, 60.9 percent in the second half, while only shooting 52 percent from the foul line.”It was huge,” Peponakis said of the win, which followed a disappointing loss at New Haven Saturday. “My guys stepped up, we grew up today, we learned a little bit and we made shots. We still didn't make free throws, but we made plays at the end.”Reach Sports Editor Dylan Butler by e-mail at TimesLedger@aol.com or call 718-229-0300, Ext. 143.