Hayes Flattens Mount St. Mikes
BRONX, NY- One of the biggest and most passionate rivalries in high school sports is the rivalry between Cardinal Hayes and Mount St. Michael. The two Bronx schools have been going at it for over 70 years in all sports, and Tuesday was first time this season they have met on the hardwood.
While it looked like it would be a tight game early on with the game tied at 12 late in the opening quarter, the Joe Toussaint '19 led Cardinals weren't going to allow the Mountaineers to be in this one for long as the Iowa bound guard led what would be a dominant second quarter to help Hayes roll the rest of the way in a 76-51 road victory.
All day in school at Cardinal Hayes on Tuesday the talk was about the big game between their rivals from Mount, and Cardinals head coach Joe Lods said that the football team made sure that the basketball players were ready to get the job done before they left to head to the game.
"Mount is out huge rival so the football team reminded our guys before we left that they knew it was a 4pm game but to bring back the W so we were really focused coming in," Lods explained.
The Cardinals may have been focused but Mount also came out strong as Mazi Campbell '20 connected on his first two looks from long range, each coming from the corners, as the Mountaineers tied the game at 12 with 2:14 to go in the opening quarter.
Lods would call a timeout to settle down his team and it was at that point that he said he knew everything would be ok with Toussaint assuring him that he was about to get going in a major way.
"We got here a little late, so it took Joe a little time to get lathered up, but he came up to me then and said I'm ready to go, and at that point I knew we were in good shape," Lods explained.
It wasn't the best start to the game for Toussaint who went just 2-6 in his first attempts of the day from the FT line early, but he would score the next seven points to close out the opening quarter to see the Cardinals go up 19-12 after one, and after back to back Jaylen Murray '20 three's to open the second the lead was into double digits for Cardinal Hayes in what seemed like a blink of an eye.
After that it was all Toussaint as he would score 12 points in the second quarter, have 21 points at the half and outscore Mount St. Michael all by himself over the first 16 minutes as a once close game was blown wide open because of the dynamic abilities of Toussaint as he helped give Cardinal Hayes a 41-18 halftime lead.
Early on in the game the Mount St. Michael crowd was chanting overrated at the Iowa signed guard, and while Toussaint said he didn't use that as motivation saying that he mostly blocks out what people say in the stands, he admitted he heard it and went out and did what he had to do.
"Yeah of course I hear it, but I do a good job of blocking that stuff out," Toussaint stated. "I'm good at ignoring ignorance."
Even if the heckles at the start didn't affect him, it was Toussaint's game as even when he wasn't scoring, he was making impressive play after impressive play, led by an alley oop pass that was thrown down by Shemani Fuller '20 as the Cardinal Hayes lead only continued to grow in the second half.
