(Denis Gostev )

FOR YOU, COACH: Nazareth co-coaches Ron Kelly and Lauren Best show their emotions watching a video tribute to head coach Apache Paschall, who died at age 38 this month. During the ceremony, players left roses on a chair left empty for the coach (inset). (
)

Nazareth players were in tears. There was a somber silence in the gym. The coaches could hardly maintain their composure.

Just a half hour later, there was a basketball game to play.

The Lady Kingsmen dried their eyes, tightened up their laces and beat visiting Archbishop Molloy, 77-63, in a CHSAA Brooklyn/Queens Division I girls basketball game last night in Brooklyn.

Apache Paschall wouldn’t have wanted it any other way.

Paschall, the iconic Nazareth coach who dedicated his life to the game, died at age 38 on Jan. 3 of cardiac arrest after a four-month battle with skin cancer. Before the game last night, there was a 20-minute ceremony celebrating his life and legacy, and afterward the two teams gathered at midcourt for a prayer.

“You’ll never get over it,” Nazareth junior guard Sadie Edwards said. “It won’t be the same.”

It was Nazareth’s first game since Paschall’s death.

The Lady Kingsmen were supposed to play Bishop Ford on Thursday and Christ the King on Sunday. Both schools’ administrations felt like it was too soon to play given the circumstance. Nazareth officials and Paschall’s family adamantly disagreed. Athletic director Rochelle Murphy has petitioned the league to hand Ford and Christ the King forfeits.

“Stopping them from playing will not help the situation,” said Elaine Bartlett, Paschall’s mother. “Everyone who knows Apache knows no matter what went on with his family, with his daughter, with his personal life, with his own sickness, Apache was there for the game. The game was first and everything else was second. That’s what my son lived for.”

Paschall made it to almost every practice and every game even while he was going through radiation treatments for cancer.

Paschall won two New York State Federation Class AA titles as a coach and his Exodus travel program emerged as one of the premier ones in the country.

Nazareth came into this season ranked No. 1 in the country by ESPN.

Last night, Nazareth unveiled a poster of Paschall looking over the gym.

Co-coaches Lauren Best and Ron Kelley both wore towels on their shoulders — a Paschall trademark — and they left a chair on the bench empty with a towel draped on it. The players wore patches on the shoulder of their jerseys and each placed a rose on the empty chair to cap the pregame ceremony.

“When I play now,” sophomore guard Bianca Cuevas said, “I just feel like he’s with me.”