Sports
Bulva Tops 1,000 as Mineola Rolls Over Bulldogs
Mustangs beat Island Trees 69-53 to stay in first place in Conference IV.
He started by smiling, then he shrugged his shoulders and laughed.
“Yeah, coach didn’t tell me until after the game.”
He is Jimmy Bulva, senior big man for the Mineola Mustangs. What coach Jim Hegmann told him was that he had scored his 1,000th point as a Mustang.
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“It feels great, it was a great achievement,” Bulva said.
What made the moment even better, though, was that his team also won the game.
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Mineola cruised to victory Friday night, beating Island Trees 69-53.
Bulva dropped 14 in the game before being pulled out, putting him at 1,002 points for his career. A four-year varsity player, Bulva may be the first boy to top the milestone in Mineola’s history.
“I don’t know,” Coach Hegmann said after the game, “I don’t think anyone has done it before.”
“It was four years of working hard, ” Hegmann said talking about Bulva’s work ethic. “He had to make sacrifices and work on the little things. ”
As for Hegmann not telling Bulva about crossing the milestone, Bulva was ok with it.
“I had no idea, it made it feel great,” Bulva said. Hegmann kept the game ball for Bulva, and as he handed it to his parents Bulva couldn’t help but crack a smile.
“It’s been a huge thing for me to play basketball my whole life.”
But as the was quick to point out, something just as big for the team happened on the night.
After dropping two conference games in a row, Mineola went from having a two game cushion for the top spot to being tied with Valley Stream North and Seaford.
Coach Hegmann said that “we played well tonight.”
He also noted the importance of practice, saying “we worked on some things in practice, focused on defense.”
With two games left on the schedule, the game was needed for Mineola to remain in contention for first place with a 6-3 conference record.
“I told the kids, we got to focus on one game at a time,” Hegmann said. “This game was huge, it was coming down to the wire.”
Up next on the schedule is a match Tuesday at , who Mineola on Jan. 18.
“Our focus is on North,” Hegmann said.
1 2 3 4 F Island Trees 2 11 17 23 53 Mineola 16 25 20 8 69 Mineola Scoring Statistics Player Position Points Mike Waszczuk Guard 15 James Bulva Forward 14 Brian Gaffney Guard 12 Ryan Jenkins Guard 7 Malcolm Brown Guard 6 Matt Moro Forward 5 Thomas Breslin Forward 4 Thomas Ward Forward 4 Quinn Paggi Guard 2
