Sacred Heart High (NY) 2019-20 Season Preview

By Robert Pena,

As the season is about to begin, the Sacred Heart High School Irish will be without their best player. They are still hopeful the young core they have can overcome this loss and come together as a team to win games. Per Coach Stephen Marcellino, “We lost one of our best players, Dwayne Pennicooke, to a torn ACL and he will be out this year. Our players are young and no one has had much playing experience, except Amir Byrd. Is going to take them a while to mature as a team, definitely a rebuilding year.”

The Irish backcourt players are Josendy Nova, Connor Crosby and Mark Cuban. Josendy is 6’0 a senior guard and transfer student from Eagle Academy who averaged 10 ppg last season. Crosby a 6’0 juinor and a three sport athlete, averaged 4 ppg with 6 rebounds last season. Cuban is a senior spot-up shooter who is injured at the moment but will be back in three weeks.

Bryan Nwaren, Ruspert Hemeniz and Amir Byrd will be in the front court for the Irish this season. Nwaren is a 6’2 senior who averaged 3 ppg with 7 rebounds last season. “He has developed into strong rebounder.” per coach Marcillino. Hemeniz is a junior will be a key new player this season after transferring in from public high school. He is very athletic and developed while playing AAU for the Minutemen this past offseason where he averaged 12 rebounds a game.

 

Another key new player is Messiah Bright a junior transfer student that averaged 12 ppg and 8 abounds a game. “Good all around player, a slasher who drives to the basket extremely well” said Coach Marcellino. 

 

“The long term goal is to get the kids to college. The short term goal is to get the kids better every day,” per coach Marcellino.

 

Mark Cuban, Ruspert Hemeniz, Messiah Bright and Amir Byrd are the four players that are being recruited by Division III schools.