Carle Place boys basketball team's Ryan Leary scores 21 points to lead Frogs to Nassau Class B crown

The shots weren’t swishing through the net with the usual regularity for Long Island’s most prolific point producer in boys basketball, admittedly “off” on this night. And Carle Place was clinging to a two-point edge after three quarters with the Nassau Class B title on the line.

“In the fourth quarter, it’s showtime,” Ryan Leary said. “I’ve got to show out. I’ve got to help the team win.”

The Pace-bound point guard indeed perked up during showtime. Leary scored nine of his 21 points in the fourth quarter to help the top-seeded Frogs win their second straight county championship. They claimed a 55-38 decision over No. 2 Cold Spring Harbor on Wednesday night at Farmingdale State in a rematch of last year’s final.

“Last year, it was great,” Leary said. “So just doing it another time, it’s even better. My senior year, to go out with a county championship, I mean, it means the world. It means everything.”

John Cantwell made some offensive and defensive adjustments 10 games ago, and the 16-6 Frogs have won every game since. But their coach had high hopes from the start.

“I felt that we had enough depth and enough veterans from last year to come back this year, that we could take it,” Cantwell said.

Now it’s on to step two, to try to repeat as Long Island champs. They will face formidable Southampton at 5 p.m. on Tuesday at Farmingdale State. The Frogs want to get back to Binghamton and earn a state crown after falling to Woodlands in the state semifinals last year.

“We definitely are driven,” Leary said.

Leary, who is averaging 29.3 points per game, could very well reach a major milestone against Southampton. He stands 16 short of 2,000 for his career.

“I think I’m going to get it, but right now I’m more worried about winning a Long Island championship, getting back upstate,” Leary said. “If I’m going to score 2,000 while doing that, that’s just a dream that I didn’t know I had until recently.”

Cold Spring Harbor, which was led by Connor Sheridan’s 10 points, fell to 12-8.

“We just really weren’t able to score the whole entire day,” coach Jason Mercurio said.

But his Seahawks will be moving on, too. There’s an at-large berth in Class B this season, so they will play in a regional semifinal against the eventual Section IV champ next Wednesday in Johnson City. But first they will have to try to put this loss behind them.

“We’re pretty disappointed,” Mercurio said. “We put a lot into this.”

It was 35-33 Frogs after three. Then eighth-grade guard Caden Saccone hit a jumper, Mario D’Alessandro scored off his offensive rebound and Leary followed with seven straight points for an 11-0 run that made it 46-33 with 3:19 left.

“I know everybody talks about ‘Ryan Leary, Ryan Leary,’ ” Cantwell said. “But the guys around him really all join in. If Ryan’s the only one on the floor, we don’t win.”

Carle Place got a big boost from D’Alessandro. The 6-3 junior forward/center scored nine of his 15 points in the first quarter as the Frogs took a 14-11 lead.

“It helps a lot because four people are always staring at Ryan,” D’Alessandro said about his complementary offense. “When I’m on the wing, usually I can get open and it helps us score.”