PSAL SEMIFINAL

Bergtraum 75

Kennedy 50

PSAL SEMIFINAL

Francis Lewis 69

Grand Street 61

It almost makes you wonder why the PSAL bothers with the rest of the girls basketball season.

For the fifth time in six years, Bergtraum will defend its title against Francis Lewis. Each team advanced to next Sunday’s championship at Madison Square Garden with a semifinal win yesterday at Hunter College.

And like each time before, Bergtraum is expected to win the championship.

“No one wants to be part of the team that breaks the dynasty,” said Epiphanny Prince, who led the top-seeded Lady Blazers with 27 points in their 75-50 win over No. 4 Kennedy.

With a victory Sunday, Bergtraum will have won eight straight crowns. Prince would be the second player to win four titles after former teammate Keisha Stokes also did it.

“That would be amazing,” said Prince, who broke Cheryl Miller’s national scoring record earlier in the year when she poured in 113 points against Brandeis and both she and head coach Ed Grezinsky received a fair amount of criticism for it. “That’s what I want.”

Francis Lewis head coach Mike Eisenberg would be happy with just one championship. He has guided the Lady Patriots to the Garden three straight years, six times overall, and never has won. But he’s not complaining – too much.

“Every single coach in the city would like to play in the Garden and lose,” said Eisenberg, whose third-seeded team nearly blew a 17-point lead before hanging on to beat No. 2 Grand Street Campus, 69-61. “I would like to win one.”

Eisenberg isn’t likely to get his wish fulfilled, and he seems to know that.

“I think this might be their best team,” Eisenberg said of Bergtraum. “Epiphanny does things so effortlessly, and they have the best backcourt in the country.”

The coach said he had a more positive pep talk ready for his team, but acknowledged that going up against Prince and junior guard Erica Morrow is daunting, if not overwhelming. His players believe they have reason to show up at the Garden again.

“We’re hungrier this year,” said senior Vionca Murray, who had 25 points in the win. Teammate Diatiema Hill added 20. “We like to prove people wrong. We want to get them back.”

Murray, who was on the team last year, knows there is only one way to do that.

“If we limit the mistakes we made before, then we can do it,” Murray said.