By Melvyn Feuerman
The U.S. Merchant Marine Academy (USMMA) Mariners and the Yeshiva University (YU) Macabees split a thrilling double header at O’Hara Hall on the academy grounds on Feb. 10.
The visiting YU Macabees men’s team fought its way to an important victory against the USMMA Mariners—our Great Neck hometown favorite. The Macs won 75–72, defeating the Mariners in a titanic struggle. The lead rocked to and fro with hurricane force between these teams of scholar athletes. In fact, the Mariners, some of whom will be headed to the high seas after graduation, almost tied the game with a three pointer with a couple of seconds left on the time clock.
Reliable sources report that a larger-than-normal throng attended the double header, cheering wildly for both the Mariners and the Macs.
The YU male Macs are on a 16-game winning streak and are on track to possibly capture the Sky Line conference crown and postseason tournament play.
The women Mariners, who are future female shipmates on the high seas, defeated the YU lady Macs 70–43 in the first game of the double header—a game filled with great passing and rebounding. The game stats shows that the Macs valiantly pushed back against the Mariners. In fact, the lady Macs outscored the Mariners 20–11 in the last quarter of the game.
The women Mariners have a great record this year, 19–2 overall, and are going on to its first-ever NCAA Tournament contest in the opening round of the 2019 NCAA DIII Championship.
Full disclosure: I love watching sports when the participants are scholar athletes who are future leaders of the country.
So, neighbors and friends, I suggest you forget about missed field goal attempts during the playoff, poor referee pass interference calls and a low-scoring Super Bowl game, and toss your mistaken office sports pool numbers into the dust bin of history.
Check out the Great Neck home team’s future USMMA women’s and men’s Mariner sporting events for basketball, baseball, football and other sports at www.usmmasports
.com/composite.
Melvyn Feuerman, a (senior citizen) sports cub reporter from Great Neck, wrote this on assignment for the Great Neck Record.
