By Nina Mandell
DNAinfo Reporter/Producer
MANHATTAN — Madison Square Garden will be taken over by high school hoopsters this weekend as the city's best basketball programs compete in the PSAL championships.
Brooklyn’s Boys and Girls Kangaroos (27-5) hope to end a 31-year PSAL championship drought as they take on the top-seeded Benjamin Cardozo Judges of Queens for the AA PSAL championship game at 1 p.m. on Saturday.
“We're going to get one this year,” Kangaroos junior Leroy Isler told PSAL.org. “I promise.”
Boys and Girls made it to the finals in 2007 and 2008, but they lost to Brooklyn powerhouse Abraham Lincoln both times.
“It's a great feeling going back,” Boys and Girls coach Ruth Lovelace told the PSAL. “I'm so proud of my guys. We set a goal at the beginning of the season, and they believed in what we were doing.”
The Kangaroos are coming of an impressive 76-52 win over No. 3 Wings Academy of the Bronx on Wednesday to earn a trip back to the championship game.
Cardozo (19-2) continued its dominant season by beating Brooklyn’s Transit Tech 62-53 on Wednesday to earn a trip to the Garden. Dwayne Brunson led the Judges with 26 points and 10 rebounds.
Boys and Girls lost to Cardozo, 57-49, in a non-league game on Jan. 10.
Cardozo’s Ryan Rhoomes, a 6-foot-8 forward, had 12 points and 14 rebounds against the Kangaroos in their first match up. The Judges won despite being out-rebounded 53-39.
Boys and Girls is led by highly recruited junior Michael Taylor, who put up 30 points for the Kangaroos in the semifinal win. He’s been a surprise factor on the New York hoops scene and finally appears comfortable with his role as a star player.
“He’s learned to accept his role and understands that sometimes by being the focus of attention, he has to be the decoy for other players,” Boys and Girls assistant Elmer Anderson told Rivals.com.
But Taylor isn’t the Kangaroos’ only weapon. Isler, Antoine Slaughter and Jeffland Neverson have been huge contributors for Boy and Girls as well.
Meanwhile, top-seeded Rice of Harlem will face Brooklyn’s Xaverian at 7:30 p.m. Friday in a quarterfinal matchup at Christ the King in Queens. Rice won the CHSAA Archdiocesan title Monday night, beating St. Raymond’s 78-59.
