Sacred Heart girls basketball uses 23-9 run to beat Kellenberg in OT, advances to NSCHSAA 'A' final
Sacred Heart players celebrate their victory as the overtime period expires in a CHSAA Class A girls basketball semifinal against Kellenberg on Saturday, Feb. 28, 2026 in Patchogue. Credit: Michael A. Rupolo Sr.
The Sacred Heart girls basketball team has certainly had better regular seasons before. However, with the postseason here, the Spartans have been given a chance to forget their first 15 games of the year ever happened.
That second chance is off to a great start.
As the third seed in the Nassau-Suffolk CHSAA Class A tournament, Sacred Heart upset second-seeded Kellenberg in overtime, 42-38, in the semifinals at St. Joseph’s University in Patchogue on Saturday.
Sacred Heart (7-9) returns to St. Joseph’s to face top-seeded St. Dominic (17-1) at 4 p.m. on Monday in the Class A finals.
“Our team’s really motivated right now,” freshman guard Charlotte St. John said. “We had lost to Kellenberg twice during the regular season. We just worked our butts off in practice. We were out for blood. What’s behind us is behind us; whatever happened yesterday doesn’t matter anymore. It doesn’t matter if we lost to any other teams — it’s a clean slate.”
The game went into overtime tied at 38. After winning the opening tipoff, senior forward Francesca Forgione dished it into the left corner to St. John. From there, St. John pump-faked around a defender, dribbled the baseline, pulled up in the low post and floated one in to go up 40-38 with 3:53 remaining. After helping force a shot-clock violation on defense, St. John came back on offense, drove the lane and laid it in to make it 42-38 with exactly three minutes left.
St. John finished with 16 points, seven rebounds, four assists and three steals.
“I was just concentrating on winning the game and scoring,” St. John said. “I wasn’t thinking of what would happen if we lost. I just wanted to get this win so we could keep playing together, especially for our seniors.”
Sacred Heart trailed 29-19 with 5:36 remaining in the third quarter. After coach Robert Speck called a timeout, Sacred Heart returned to the court refocused on the task: redeeming its 6-9 regular season.
Coming off the timeout, St. John found senior guard Maggie Miller open at the top of the key, where she nailed a three-pointer. That play sparked an extended 23-9 run to close the game.
Miller, the team’s captain, was a big piece of the second-half turnaround. She scored all seven of her points and added three steals and two blocks during the 23-9 run. She finished with four steals.
“We came in and said that we’re not letting it end today,” Miller said. “We stuck it out to the end. That’s one of our biggest capabilities: if we go down, we don’t give up.”
Mike Anderson is a high school sports reporter who has covered 12 sports so far at Newsday. He was the sports editor of Stony Brook University's campus newspaper for two years.
