On the night of Thursday, Jan. 11, on their home court, the Pat-Med Raiders proved they can take a punch and come back strong.

After losing 90-53 the night before to first-place William Floyd, the Raiders faced Brentwood, who were undefeated in league play.

Brentwood won the Class AA Suffolk and Long Island championships last season. But in a fast-paced and physical game that had the intensity of a playoff battle, Pat-Med took down Brentwood 66-64 for its biggest win of the season.

Matt Eichorn was unstoppable from long range, connecting on five 3-pointers. He led all scorers with 27 points.

Angel Redding was a dynamic presence all over the court and scored 20 points. Isaiah Gilliam had 8 points. Dominic Pertillar grabbed some key rebounds and contributed 7 points.

Pat-Med was up 26-21 at halftime and went up by 10 points, 55-45, with 6:20 left in the fourth quarter on an Eichorn 3-pointer.

But Brentwood, which came into the game riding a five-game winning streak, stormed back and cut Pat-Med’s lead to 3 points, 65-62, with 1:22 to play.

With under a minute left, Pertillar hit a free throw for Pat-Med to make it 66-62. Brentwood’s Josh Ramos scored to cut the deficit to two, but Pat-Med held on for the 66-64 win.

The Raiders improved to 8-3 (5-2 in League 1). They need only three more League 1 wins to make the postseason.

“The important thing is we never wavered,” Pat-Med coach Tim Trava said. “We had a 12-point lead, they cut it to 5. We got it back up to 10 and they cut it again, and we never faltered.”

The win, coming after the loss to Floyd, was extra sweet.

“That’s big, especially to bounce back after last night,” Trava said.  “We had a rough one last night out at Floyd. The boys bounced back.”
“We’ve got some dogs in that locker room,” he added.

“It was a big game,” Redding said. “Hustling hard. It came down to the wire; we just had to keep working and keep playing hard.”

The players showed their commitment before the game even started.

Trava told his players he wanted them at the gym at 5 p.m. in advance of the 6:45 p.m. game to go over their strategy.

The players told Trava that they’d be there at 4 p.m.

“That just shows how dedicated these kids are to winning and how bad they want to win,” Trava said. “I’m proud of them.”