Beacon Elite Smoke Vikings @ iS8

SOUTH JAMAICA, NY – With high school pre-season tournaments finally getting underway, the iS8/Nike Tip Off Classic is the most tenured event of them all. On Saturday, the iS8 revved up with seven games. While all the games were good, one was particularly intriguing.

The Vikings are a team comprised of players from South Shore H.S. in Brooklyn. As the defending PSAL City champs, all eyes are on them to see what they are bringing to the table this season. In their opening game, the Vikings were victorious versus the Southern Kings, but up against a smaller Beacon Elite in their second game of the day, the bigger Vikings squad went from hunter to hunted, losing against a Queens, NY team with players from both Holy Cross and St. Francis Prep, 68 – 54.

The Beacon Elite strategy seemed simple enough. Out rebound the Vikings by committee and clog up the lanes, making it harder for the Brooklynites to score in the paint. With that being said, the Vikings were successful in the opening quarter as perimeter shots from Kevin Kealacy and Kyrone Alexander kept the Vikings out-front early on. Beacon Elite kept pace with offense from, Tyler Michel and Nolan Raymond. After one quarter the score was knotted at 19 apiece.

As the boxing Mike Tyson said. Everybody has a plan until they get punched in the mouth. The Vikings were the bigger team so the question became, how long can Beacon Elite outhustle the bigger, taller before crumbling?

The answer would be, ‘not in this game’ as the Beacon Elite pulled out front 39 – 33 at the half with a strong quarter from Marist bound Josh Pascarelli ’23. Dejected , the Vikings deficit slid to 13 points at the top of the second half. The Beacon Elite would go on to win by 14 points.

Pascarelli, Michel and Josh Makolm led the Beacon Elite with 14 points each.