Justin Ortiz is Mr. 1,000 at Hewlett High School.
The standout senior point guard is the eighth player in program history to tally 1,000 career points — but he’s not satisfied yet.
“I’m probably around 1,150 right now, and the goal is 1,450,” the 17-year-old told The Post.
“Because the school record here is 1,445.”
Ortiz has breathed basketball ever since he was a little kid, when it became a rite of passage for all the neighborhood boys to play pickup games on the hoop in front of his house.
“Playing with those guys, it kind of prepared me for this moment,” Ortiz said of his two older brothers and kids twice his age.
That moment came in late December with a 73-48 win over the High School for Law Enforcement and Public Safety, when Ortiz overshadowed his own lifetime achievement.
“Going into halftime, and I shot from half court fading away, and it went in — of course, for 999.”
Not that he’s complaining about the record-setting 3-pointer that sank shortly after.
The motivation Ortiz has to be the highest-scoring Bulldog ever to take the court comes during an especially emotional season for the whole squad.
Ortiz’s assistant coach, Jonathon Welsh, is fighting a family battle as his 2-year-old daughter is enduring a genetic mutation that puts her at risk of organ failure.
The team recently held a sold-out tournament, The Rowyn Grace Classic, in honor of the tough little girl, and it hit the star harder than most.
“My father passed away when I was 6 months old,” Ortiz said.
“He’s a father figure to me. … He’s someone that I look up to. He’s family — when one of ours is struggling, we’re going to struggle with him,” the point guard added of Welsh.
Ortiz’s achievements on the court now — which all the neighborhood guys who’ve moved away or gone off to college diligently keep tabs on — bring him closer to his late father.
“For my 1,000-point game, I wore a wristband that I wrote ‘for dad’ on. After I hit the record, I was pointing to that wristband,” Ortiz said.
“He would be proud of the man I’m becoming.”
[Notigroup Newsroom in collaboration with other media outlets, with information from the following sources]
