GIRLS PSAL B TITLE GAME

Adams 46 – Bryant 36

Before this season, John Adams’ senior Alecia Fung had never even tried out for the basketball team. But when assistant coach Jim Pitman saw the athletic Fung hooping it up in gym class, he persuaded her to play for the team.

“I had a lot of personal responsibilities,” said Fung, after she scored eight points in sixth-seeded Adams’ 46-36 win over top-seeded Bryant to capture the girls PSAL B championship in front of a small but boisterous crowd at the Garden yesterday. “This year I had more time.”

Before she even played a game, Fung told her teammates that they would win it all.

“We were confident, but we didn’t know what to think,” said Michelle Tusa, who scored a game-high 13 points. “But she was right.”

Fung did much of her damage in the fourth quarter, when Adams (20-5) pulled away.

The Spartans, who advance to the state playoffs next weekend, closed the game with a 15-6 run in which they employed a defense that completely contained Bryant’s Shatyia Henderson.

“Shatyia has been carrying us all year,” said Bryant head coach Jimmy Exarhas, whose team finished 21-2. “Unfortunately, today she had the worst game of her life.”

Henderson had averaged 20 points and 24 rebounds during the playoffs. Yesterday, she was held to just eight points and was a nonfactor on the boards.

“The key was to keep [Henderson] down,” said Tusa, who was out until mid-January with an injured shoulder that she suffered playing softball over the summer. “We did that.”

Another key to Adams’ success this season, according to Tusa, was a lack of respect.

“Everyone said we would lose this game,” said Tusa. “Everyone was against us all year. That’s why we had to win.”

Coach Harold Krieger agreed with Tusa. “Most people thought Bryant was going to blow us out, but they haven’t seen my team play,” he said. “In every playoff game a different person came through for us.”

If anyone had listened to Fung, they would have known all along.