Correction

My surprise at Kingsway taking down Cherokee turns out to have been welll founded, since its didn't actually happen. My addled brain misread the results sheet and now that I look again, with even tireder eyes, I see clearly that the Chiefs rolled 67-41. It was a bigger margin than I would expect, but not a shocking result. Leah DiCaro led all scorers with 20 points and Maura Gillespie had 11. Cherokee is now 2-1 with a chance to knock off a third member of the Preseason Top 20 tomorrow (actually today)

So, I apoligize for any confusion, and I'm excited to see Cherokee again. I'll just have to catch Kingsway some other day.

Willingboro 49, Timber Creek 39

Today was my first game coverage in like six days, so it almost felt like the start of the season all over again especially because I was seeing Willingboro, just like opening night. The Chimeras won ugly again, this time hounding Timber Creek into a state of confusion. The Chargers are one solid guard away from being a very good team, but they looked scattered and lost at times tonight. Some of that was due to the quickness of the Boro guards. Erin Floyd has the potential to be a great, great player, and I think she was the best on the floor today, but she needs some room to work out there and she wasn't getting it. I know Washington Township's gym is close, which I like, but it actually looked smaller because TC had no outside threat. That's where Barb Wasko's preseason defection really kills. Lindsay Steele is a nice player who does a lot of good things, and she had a good game today, but she doesn't command enough defensive respect to give Floyd room to operate at full capacity when TC is facing a team that's as quick on help defense as Boro. The Chimeras could collapse on her every time she got the ball and still get to the kickout because they knew the 3 would not hurt them.

There was a bizarre sequence of events surrounding halftime. The game was very physical, and Floyd was having trouble connecting in the post. In the last minute of the second quarter, she drove low, missed, got and offensive board, missed again, got another offensive board and missed out of bounds. All the while, she was getting banged in the body by Willingboro. In a boys' game, those fouls don't get called, but even though I'm not sure who a foul might have been on, most officials in a girls' game would blow the whistle in that situation and send Floyd to the line. But TC didn't get the call and Boro got the ball. Floyd was visibly pissed, and related those sentiments on her way back down the floor, drawing a T. The TC bench went ballistic, and the refs came over to converse. An assistant threw one last parting shot as the group was breaking up and the bench got a T as well.

Tiffany Crews made four fouls shots for Willingboro and they seemed all set to play the last 10 seconds of the half when one ref spotted blood on a Willingboro jersey. After a minute, the officials sent three Boro players to the locker room with blood on their jerseys. I wondered aloud if the blood was Floyd's. It certainly could have been, considering the physicality of the play. Had it been, it would have thrown sand in the face of the old saying, "No blood, no foul." As I found out later, the blood came from a cut on Lindsay Steele's knee.

Anyway, when the ref sent the Boro girls off, she made a point of telling them they had to change jerseys "somewhere else, far away from the court." I didn't know why she said it like that until later, when halftime was about to end. Washington Township apparently has laundry machines on the premises or something, because the girls came back with those same jerseys clean. Except that they came back carrying them, ready to put them on as they walked on the court. There's a new rule against disrobing on the playing surface this year, I guess in response to all the demonstrations of a year ago, most notably the Lenape boys player who tore off his shirt in agony after missing a foul shot even though he had one left to take. In any case, the ref called a T on Willingboro for violation of the rule. So Floyd hit one of two foul shots with 8:00 left in the third quarter.

It was pretty strange.

For those who are interested, I ran into Lisa Steele in the hallway after the game. She was of course on hand to watch her little sister play, and she was wearing a walking boot on her left leg. A key member of possibly the greatest class of South Jersey girls' basketball players in history, Steele is in her second year at George Washington, but has struggled mightily with injuries, particularly with that left foot. A stress fracture shelved her for most of last year, and it appears to have returned for more. It's a real shame because Lisa's game is a great fit for the college level. She seemed in good spirits, however, and she's not soured on the game at all. In fact, she seems to have her heart set on a career in coaching after school. After watching her play her junior and senior seasons at Highland, I can attest to her knowledge of the game. I'm not sure I'll ever see a team as fun to watch as that Highland squad her senior year, and it was all because their three guns -- Steele, Zoll and Hemerka -- thought and saw the game at a higher level.

I spent a day off Tuesday down at the Boardwalk Classic in Wildwood, and I'll try to get to some of that stuff in a later post, perhaps even later tonight. For now, there's some other stuff I need to get to. Tomorrow, I'll be at the final of the RV tournament, which appears to be RV-Kingsway. I was surprised to see the Dragons really handed it to Cherokee in the first round, but I confess I was kind of rooting for a Kingsway victory there. It's not because I have anything against Cherokee -- I really liked that team when I saw them play -- but because we've already covered a couple of their games and I'd rather spread the wealth a little bit. I'm not sure what RV's health situation is, but it will obviously be a better game if Cole is on the court.

See you there.

Merry Christmas

It's 3 a.m. and I've just now starting to wrap my wife's gifts, which is fitting considering so many of them were bought in the last two days. In fact, I spent a couple hours at the Cherry Hill Mall this (yesterday) afternoon. To be honest, however, I usually make a point of spending some time at the mall every Christmas Eve, just to watch all the insane folks no matter what the state of my shopping list. It's helped me, I think, to maintain a sense of detachment from the hysteria, even when I have a lot to buy. Anyway, I was not really in a panic today, though I probably should have been.

Anyway, I was lamenting the fact that I haven't seen a game really go down to the wire yet this season, and it bought to mind some of the best games I've seen covering basketball. And everybody loves a list, so I figured I'd run down the top five girls' games I've ever seen and the top five girls' basketball performances I've witnessed. Maybe tomorrow I'll get around to doing the Top 5 regardless of level or gender.

So:

Top 5 GB games. (Remember I saw precious little girls' hoops in 04-05)

5. Wilson beats Camden Catholic in overtime, at Wilson 2003 -- Another OT thriller in this classic series, I'll remember it was really the end of Kelly Killion's junior season. I remember the very play she hurt her kneee on, but she still kept playing and throwing daggers at Wilson's heart. Just as they had been earlier in the season, the Tigers were a little too much for the Irish that afternoon, but it was a thrill to see two teams go to war like that. It's too bad more people weren't there for that one; the gym was about a quarter full.

4. 2002 SJ Group 4 final, Cherokee beats Toms River North -- The most bizarre finish I have ever seen, probably in any sport. TRN had it won, but a celebration a few seconds early resulted in a turnover and three (THREE) more chances for the Chiefs. In the end, Ariel Davis made two foul shots to give Cherokee a one-point win. Depending on your point of view, that game could be seen as the best and the worst. I'm sure TRN remembers it much the same way we in the US remember the 1976 Olympic game versus the USSR, when the officials kept giving the Russians chance after chance to win the game. No matter what, it's a set of circumastances I never expect to see again as long as I live.

3. 2003 Par. B state final, Sacred Heart beats Morris Catholic in overtime -- This game had everything, and it was the best performance in a stories career by Ijea Witt. It elevated her onto my All-SJ first team that year (more on that later). The Hearts were dead, and they came back to life to win in overtime. If I were on the losing end, I'd never forgive Sacred Heart for that heartbreak. Andrienne Rochetti, Vika Sholokhova, Mosley, Bowen, Meyer, they needed every single girl. I still have a picture of Steve DiPatri and Melissa Meyer turning themselves inside out with glee on the sideline. It's tacked -- along with a lot of other clippings -- to the wall next to my desk at home.

2. SJ Group 1 final, Wildwood beats Haddon Township -- Basketball is certainly a team sport, but sometimes it's nice to see two great players just slug it out between themselves. Eight girls got out of the way for two that night at Woodstown. Neither Monica Johnson nor Cara Murphy were known as the greatest defendered, but they were on each other at both ends of the floor and they both elevated their games. It was a sight to see. Johnson's quickness and unparalleled range was balanced perfectly by Murphy's strength of will and preternatural ability to get to the basket. Murphy played the entire second half on a sprained ankle, and Johnson prevailed in the end, but both girls went home in full possession of the packed gym's total awe that night.

1. 2003 Par. A playoffs, Camden Catholic beats Holy Cross in three overtimes, playoffs 2003 -- There was so much stuff going on. The game was the first half of a boy-girls double header, with the second game being CC-Paul VI, so by the time the game got to overtime all the girls' fans and al the boys' fans were there at the same time, with many of the latter stuck outside and out of luck. The Richards twins, who had transferred to HC away from CC, were back in the Irish's gym for the first time. CC's best player, Kelly Killion, was in the stands, leading the cheers with waving crutches. The Irish, who were really a bunch of guards, were having a very tough time stopping Danielle Howard, but they were able to hang in there. I recall Annie Bilinsky making five of six foul shots down the stretch and Marcy Cuneo hitting some huge threes. I really loved watching that CC team play. They had like eight losses that season, but if the current Irish squad could capture half their chemistry, they'd be unbeatable.

Top 5 GB performances:

5. Sharnee Zoll, Highland, 2003 SJ Group 3 final -- The one thing I regretted about that season was that we never really got to see Highland play well in a close game. They were a little overjuiced, and therefore a little off, in the state semi against Willingboro, but Zoll made them a beautiful thing when they played relaxed as they did in the sectional final against Wilson. It's hard for me to believe one player can make so much different to a team, but without her, the Tartans probably would have lost to that Wilson team. With her, it wasn't even a game. To be honest, the only player I've watched from close up on a regular basis who had better vision and feel for the game was Pepe Sanchez, and he was only the best passing and game-management point guard in the college game his junior and senior years. I fully expect Zoll to reach the WNBA and made some team extremely fun to watch.

4. Kara Ayers, Absegami, 2004 Cougar Classic vs. Willingboro -- Ayers was never the flashiest player on the court, and against the Boro, she probably wasn't even in the top five, but nobody could touch her that night. It helped that the game was extremely highly anticipated, that the gym was pretty much packed, and that Krissy Rosario played what is probably still her best game of her career in frustrating Crystal. And yet, somebody has to win the game down the stretch and that was Ayers.

3. Ikea Witt, Sacred Heart, 2003 Par. B state final -- As I mentioned above, this was the capper on a storied career for Witt, who had ironically been long overshadowed by the diminutive Adrienne Rochetti. Rochetti was a great player and an all-time gamer, and she got that team to within sight of a state title. But Witt carried them the rest of the way. She came into the game with four fouls in the middle of the fourth and just lit the Dunn Center on fire. She had like five or six steals in the late going, a bunch of huge baskets, a couple of blocked shots, and never got that fifth foul. For 10 minutes, she was the best player in the state.

2. Monica Johnson, Wildwood, 2001 SJ Group 1 final -- I mentioned this one above as well. This might not have been Moni's best game, but I really believe it was the best game out of the eight or nine times I saw her play. It was the game that proved to me that I wasn't just seeing a really good girls' basketball player, that I was seeing greatness. A couple of moments I remember: HT had just scored a big bucket in the second half, so Moni responded by pulling up from about 30 feet -- Dujuan Wagner style -- and burying one right back. A few plays later, HT was pressuring Wildwood and Monica came barrelling down the court with the ball. Two Hawk defenders -- Lauren Bolis and Vanessa Gercke, I think -- converged on her at halfcourt and tried to pin her just over the timeline. She never slowed down. At a full run, she split the defenders -- whose feet were practically tangled -- with a through-the-legs crossover. From that moment on, I considered it a privilege to cover any Wildwood game and went in ready to remember everything I saw.

1. Crystal Langhorne, Willingboro, 2003 SJ Group 3 final -- Yes, Pat Summitt was there, and so was Dawn Staley and half a dozen other D-1 coaches, but Crystal didn't know that until hafltime, after she had scored like 30. She ended up with a truly astounding line, and it went something like this: 47 points on 19-f0r-22 from the floor and 9-for-11 from the foul line, 22 rebounds including 12 offensive, five blocks, four steals. Awesome. Crystal was the absolute queen of being really nice and playing really mean. That night at CH East was the full realization of her potential as a high school player, even though she was only a junior. She's yet to reach that level of dominace at the next level, but she's gotten a lot closer than many expected, and she has only just begun.

That's it for now. Feel free to chime in with your thoughts in the comments. And again, Happy Holidays.

Heights 43, Sterling 32

This game was a bit closer than the score indicates, but Heights certainly played better tonight. As coach Kenny Hamburger said, it was an extremely hard-fought victory, and considering the fact that Collingswood fell to Paulsboro this afternoon, it was a very important one. Now Haddonfield is the only undefeated Colonial team left, as hard as that is to fathom just one week into the season.

I had a good time despite the presence of an obnoxious Heights fan/parent right in my ear, but those people exist in all gyms. It was just my bad luck to be sitting where I was. The only other annoying thing was the JV game, which t-o-o-k f-o-r-e-v-e-r. The varsity game was scheduled for 7 p.m., but the fourth quarter of the JV game didn't begin until 6:53. Both teams reached the double bonus in the second half, and the refs were nonchalant on stoppages in play; the players were almost always at the spot, ready to inbound the ball, three or four seconds before the ref got there. Also, I counted eight jump balls in the fourth quarter alone. Consequently, the varsity game did not tip off until 7:32, and I was worried about pushing my deadline. Needless to say, I was thrilled to see MBK -- one of very, very best officials in the area -- walk into the gym.

Unfortunately for Sterling, the Knights were cold again. Heights was allowing everyone but Brennan and Bryant some open looks, and the role players just could not bury them. Marie Belonia had a particularly tough night. If she had been able to hit one or two of those open threes, the affect on the game would have been even bigger than the points because maybe it keeps the Heights D honest. As it was, Kennedy and Carter did a great job on Brennan and Bryant in part because they got plenty of help from defenders who had no qualms about leaving their marks wide open 15 feet from the hoop.

Sterling will see better nights, of course. Shooting is the magical, mysterious part of the game that lets fate come creeping in. Most of the seriously miraculous upsets in the sport's history have something to do with one team shooting incredibly or another team shooting dismally. All you can do is live cleanly and hope the gods favor you.

On the other side, Sterling was doing a decent job defensively itself. Heights didn't shoot the lights out, but the Garnets did get some really clutch buckets, especially from Kennedy. Her three at the end of the first quarter pushed a 4-point lead to seven, her three in the third quarter, when Heights really won the game, was from like 28 feet or something. And her cold-blooded basket from the lane at the third-quarter buzzer was a real blow to the Knights, making it 32-23. It's weird, but when I think of a seven-point lead, I think "just a little more than five," but when I see a nine-point lead, my thought is, "almost 10." It's only really a two-point difference, but it sort of feels like five.

Before I move on, I need to thank coach Jeff Eppright and the Heights boys' soccer team for the gift. A boy who I assume was a little Eppright gave it to me as I began my conversation with Sterling coach Kate McDonald, and I didn't have time to properly acknowledge it. Thank god there was a note, or I might never have figured it out.

When I got back to the office, I found a few upsets waiting for me. As a Collingswood resident, the aforementioned Colls-Paulsboro result hurts my heart a little bit, but that's really a big one for a Red Raiders program that could end up surprising a lot of people. That situation is even more important because of the lack of a heavy favorite in South Jersey Group 1. In any case, I heartily congratulate Paulsboro and look forward to seeing them play in person.

The other upsets were less surprising. Eastern beat RV, which was again without an injured Chelsea Cole. This wasn't so much a shock since the Vikings got everyone's attention, laying the smack down on CH West opening night. Florence beat Riverside, indicating that a new era may be about to begin in the Burlco Freedom. We'll call it the Jasmyra Saunders Era for now, since the Trenton Catholic junior had 32 tonight in a win over Maple Shade. Also, Cumberland bounced back from the other night to hand Kingsway it's first loss. That leaves Williamstown, I believe, as the last unbeaten Trico Royal squad.

So seven full days into the season, and the vast majority of the Preseason Top 20 has been beaten. Not a surprise at all. In fact, I'm OK with the way it's turned out. There will be plenty of movement in the Jan. 2 rankings, including lots of shifts based on upsets that have not even happened yet. I'd have been disappointed if it were otherwise.

The opening campaign of the season, covering six games in seven days, is at an end, and I probably won't be back out there until Dec. 27. I will have a Monday column to submit, so some lucky coaches or players out there will be getting a call. I haven't decided who yet. I'll also try to post here a couple of times over the weekend with some interstitial ramblings. Even without game scores, where are always fires to start and dead horses to beat. So check back if you're so inclined.

All that's left is to wish you all the happiest and healthiest of holiday weekends. I hope you all get exactly what you want, whether or not you deserve it.

Locker room tirades deconstructed

The tirades of GB coaches seems to be on a lot of people's minds lately. Up in Trenton, for example, the the Trenton Central coach has been placed on some kind of unofficial suspension following an allegedly profanity-laced tirade after a preseason scrimmage. The team and most of the parents seem to be rallying around the sort-of deposed coach, but it sheds light on a rumbling issue throughout sports, especially girls' sports.

What is acceptable?

As I've said and written before, I can't pretend to know what it's like to coach high school kids on a daily basis, and the spectrum of emotions that it must inspire over the course of a season. I have been able to observe the demeanors and coaching styles of literally hundreds of high school coaches, however, and I can tell you that those styles are just as diverse among the successful as the unsuccessful. There is no magic range of volatility that allows for lasting results, and there are no lines of laxity or rigidity beyond which no coach can field a team that's both winning and happy. I tend to think of the locker room tirade as a nuclear option, a last line of defense, because what is there to do if it doesn't work? To reach that point in the preseason, as the TC coach apparently did, is certainly ominous for the success of that team, but whether it was proper or warranted depends on particulars of the situation.

I think it's perfectly OK for a coach to blow up at a lack of effort, a lack of focus and concentration, a loss of composure or on-court selfishness. I even think it's alright single individual players out for shortcomings in these areas. High school kids are very near adults in just about every way, and sports is the perfect place for them to learn accountability. Personal attacks against individual players for problems that come from off the court and outside the gym are obviously not OK. Coaches often run into problems here over issues of conditioning -- the story linked below mentions such a case from a few years ago -- but I think if a player comes to practice and busts his/her ass every single day, there isn't anything more you can expect. Most coaches get it.

Sometimes coaches say things to athletes in girls' sports that make me wince, but then I just try to imagine that the coach was talking to a male athlete and I usually realize that the stuff is not so bad, or at least that it's not uncommon. A lot of SJ's best -- and most controversial -- girls' coaches get in trouble with those outside the program simply because they treat their female players the same way they would treat male ones. Interestingly, it's usually female coaches who can pull it off, at least for a while. Parents tend to tolerate it less from a male coach.

For the record, I don't get the feeling the thing I witnessed the aftermath of at HC the other night actually crossed the line. In fact, I'm not aware of any current coach in SJ who crosses that line. They may exist, but I haven't heard about it. To assert that such things were happening would be irresponsible.Assuming that line isn't crossed, a coach is within her/his rights to use anything she/he deems necessary to spark the team. In the HC case, I only wonder if it was necessary or warranted after a loss to a physically superior team.

For those interested, here's a link to a story about the Trenton Central coaching controversy:

http://www.nj.com/news/times/index.ssf?/base/news-0/1135069556227750.xml&coll=5

I'll be at Sterling-Haddon Heights tomorrow night. See you there.

Deptford 44, Cumberland 39

I have to admit I was very suprised when Deptford started playing catch witha couple minutes left in the first half. The Spartans were up about 20 and in total control, but my first thought was, "Isn't this a little early?"

I was sitting on the Cumberland side of the stands (not because I was rooting for the Colts but because the cheerleaders' endless chanting in monotonous enough from far away) and the folks around me were livid, screaming that what Deptford was doing was cowardly and unfair, bordering on cheating. I couldn't disagree more with that, but I did think it was ill-advised. Stalling and holding the ball is a great way to drive a trailing team out of its head, or force it out of a zone defense. Though it more or less worked in those two capacities for Deptford tonight, it also sort of shut down many of the things the Spartans were doing so well early on. Cumberland started coming back, Keyona Grant played incredible with four fouls in the second half, and Parsiphany Pender started to find her groove. And when Deptford needed to started that O back up to respond, it stalled. The lucky thing for Coach Pitito and Deptford is that they still got out of there with a win and a lesson learned.

Kristina Cox played very well in the first half, especially considering the Colts were threw a box-and-one at her. I was pretty impressed with Miranda Paynter, and Jazmin Clement was like a magnet for rebounds. Cox is obviously very mentally strong, but the rest of the team can and likely will improve in that area. Once Cumberland started punching, most of the team went into a kind of shell.

I was perplexed by Pender in the first half, because I knew she had a rep as a scorer and yet she seemed to be out of sync. Turns out she's a terror from 15 feet in, a wizard at getting to the hoop in traffic. But I'm guessing she's not known as a shooter since Deptford left her completely alone on the perimeter. I am talking ALONE, nobody within 10 feet when she's standing on the 3-point line, and she didn't pull the trigger. If she could add the trey as a weapon, she'd be so much more effective.

A our-foul first-half meltdown aside, I was extremely impressed with Grant. She had like eight steals and 11 boards despite missing more than a quarter with the foul trouble. She's definitely one of the quickest players, if not the quickest, that I've seen so far this year. As she gets stronger, she'll start finishing at the hoop and her quickness will be even more of a weapon. She saw at least three or four layups roll off the rim tonight, including one at the thrid-quarter buzzer that could have ended up being huge.

In other news, I had to laugh when I saw some of the area scores, one in particular. A couple of days ago, I asked one Olympic American assistant coach who the division favorite was and the coach said something like, "You're not going to want to hear it, but it's probably Lenape." I'm not sure why I wouldn't want to hear that, unless it's because I declined to rank the Indians above Washington Township or Cherry Hill East, but I still had a little chuckle when I walked in to find that Lenape had lost to Pennsauken in overtime. I think the buzzing bees have overlooked those other Indians, who have one of the division's top players in Elise Graham.

Other stuff that happened: CC survived another close game, this time at Paul vI without even a single point from Matera. I wonder how much of this is the fact that the Irish have a target on their backs in every game, and how much is them struggling with chemistry. We'll see when they head down to Wildwood to play Archbishop Ryan or St. John Villa. Also, Wildwood beat Salem. Perhaps the Warriors are back in the Trico Classic mix.

Well, tomorrow is an off day from basketball for me, the first one since last Thursday. I'll probably try to post something sometime during the day, as there is other stuff to talk about, including an interesting story out of Trenton that GF alerted me to. I'll be at Heights for the Sterling game on Thursday.

W is for Wednesday and for Wrestling

There are only one or two GB games today, so attention turns away from the court and things that matter to stuff that could hadly matter less, like the preseason rankings.

As I wrote when I revealed them, I expected them to take a beating and they did. However, I don't regret making Wilson No. 1, nor ranking BE in the Top 10 or Sterling in the Top 20. Or even leaving Cherokee and Lenape out to start. Folks have got to understand that it's not that I don't realize what people are thinking, it's that I don't care what they're thinking and furthermore, it's kind of my job to not care.

Four or five years ago, the C-P Top 20 was actually a Coaches' Poll, and every weekend we'd call anywhere between five and 20 coaches, get their votes and add them up. But because coaches' first responsibility is to their teams, they didn't have time to see a whole lot of squads outside their conferences or pore over the scores in all the papers to make sure they hadn't missed anything. And every few weeks, something wacky would happen, like a team with two losses to another team would still be ranked higher. Then players and parents and coaches and principals and politicians and heads of foreign states and Himalayan sherpas would all call in to bitch about us disrespecting this team or that team, choosing to ignore the fact that all we really did was add up the damn numbers.

So it was decided that if we were going to stand behind the rankings, they had to be ours, not the coaches'. So while everybody else can easily get all hopped up about how this team looked in summer league games or how that team has a girl who dropped once scored 45 in an eighth-grade CYO game, we make decisions based one who's coming back, what the coach says in the preseason information, what their record was the year before and where the program usually ends up at the end of the year. We do all this knowing that we're going to miss some teams, and that the preseason rankings are probably going to get hammered. But we also know that, by the end of the season, the list will likely be more credible than anyone who attacks it because it's based on three months of results, not hype or opinion or rumor or political pressure.

So yes, Cherokee is a good team that deserves to be ranked, but they didn't make the playoffs last year. So maybe BE has some questions to answer, but they have two very good players to start with. And perhaps Sterling and Haddon Township have not, so far, looked like great teams but they both have proven track records.

The one place where I might have believed the hype was Haddon Heights. The cagy Colonial coaches seemed pretty much in agreement that the Garnets were the team to beat, but now I think maybe those picks were a red herring, designed to take pressure off their own teams. In fact, now that I think about it, many of the coaches who identified their squads as "the team to beat" in their division have already been knocked down a peg. They may all yet be proven right, but it just shows that the season holds surprises for us all, even those who know everything.

Eustace 50, Holy Cross 26

If you pick up the paper tomorrow and wonder why there are no Holy Cross quote, I offer the following explanation:

Following the game I went first to the victors, as usual, especially since Eustace was on the road. Sometimes visiting teams split quick. I talked to Coach Reitano, then Lindsay Hudspeth and I figured I'd just get HC coach Fred Phillips when he came out of the locker room. I sat down in the bleachers to wait, saying to myself that if he didn't come out in the time it took to add up the box score, I'd think about taking off. Ten minutes later, the box score was done and I looked at my watch. The game had ended 20-25 minutes before and it was about 8:30, getting close to a tight deadline fit.

So I waited a few more minutes and noticed that some of the HC players were out of the locker room, but no head coach. What's more, something rather unpleasant must have been going on behind closed doors because most of the varsity players who were out were either crying or had clearly been crying recently. I don't want to speculate on what was happening, but nobody on that team was happy.

Not that there was reason to be happy, but I think abject sadness was probably a little overkill. After all, Eustace had the best two players on the court and a supporting cast equal to anything HC put up, talent-wise, so the score was not a huge surprise. As far as I could tell, the Lancers played hard. They rebounded pretty well, they went to the floor for loose balls, they frustrated Lazos in the post, etc. They just weren't good enough basketball players tonight.

Eustace took advantage of HC's special attention to Lazos to get wide-open shots on the perimeter, and every mistake they made seemed like the result of a calculated risk, i.e. a 75-foot outlet pass to a wide-open player that ended up just out of reach. The Crusaders moved the ball well, buried their open looks, buried their foul shots, didn't allow many uncontested shots and did a decent job on the defensive glass. That's a recipe for success at any level, and there wasn't much that Holy Cross could have done. Perhaps there were things that the coaching staff was telling the players that they were not heeding on the court, but I'm not sure it would have made much difference in the final analysis. I'm no coach, and wouldn't presume to even imagine the complexities of getting dozens of teenage girls to work together in a harmonious program, but the Lancers will play better games against beatable teams. It just seems to me like restraint might be the better part of valor in this case.

But again, all I saw were some tear-stained cheeks.

Anyway, here are a few links from today's paper, starting with the Gami-Wilson game story:
http://www.courierpostonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20051219/VARSITY/512190354/1023

And here's a link to the weekly GB report:
www.courierpostonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20051219/VARSITY/512190357/1023

And here's one more link, the KC's Q & A with Haddonfield's Martha Lupinski:
http://www.courierpostonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20051219/VARSITY/512190355/1023

I'll be at Cumberland-Deptford tomorrow, barring some unforeseen event. Both of these teams are supposed to be in the mix for the Trico Royal title. The Colts beat GC on Friday night to announce its candidacy and the Spartans fell to Clearview, casting doubt upon theirs. It's odd to talk about a must-win game in the first week of the season, but it's hard to imagine Deptford going on to win the Royal after starting 0-2.

We'll see what happens.

Gami 68, Wilson 60

I wouldn't say it was the prettiest game.

In fact, I would say I'm 0-for-3 on pretty games so far this season, still waiting for lightning to strike. It's hard not to be stunned by how big Gami is. Wilson took quite a while to adjust, and the six blocks the Braves got credit for in the final box score certainly seems like an understatement. I don't have anything bad to say about the Braves, other than the lack of a cold-blooded point guard, which they could have used in the second half when Wilson was throwing its full-court blitz at them. Going forward, Gami will be a force as long as the big girls can avoid foul trouble. There's so many of them -- Rosario, Mostafa, Booker, etc. -- that they should be able to spread the fouls around a bit. Wilson's whole strategy was to run at the bigs, so I think Gami will benefit by seeing just what that looks like.

De'ree Fooks is a big-time player, looking more and more like Maudess at her best every day. Fulton was perhaps a little smoother, a little more under control, but Fooks' upside based on he physical gifts is much higher. I feel like she can be a major-conference college player if she builds on the sort of game she showed in the second half today. She ended up with 22 points, seven boards and seven steals, the best individual performance of the game.

OC's new school building was nice, and I loved the fact that they left the archway of the old building standing across the street, even though all it leads to now is a parking lot. The lasagna in the hospitality room was awesome, and the event was pretty well-run, as far as I could tell. The game before Gami-Wilson -- Haddonfield-AC boys -- was a classic, with Zoubek dropping 30 on a plucky and quick but undersized Vikings team. I can't help rooting for the Haddons after covering starters Joey Malcarney and Dennis Sobolewski in the boys' soccer season. The only thing I wondered about was the size of the gym. I figured they might build it a little bigger, but since I don't pay taxes in Ocean City or Somers Point or Upper Township, I don't have much of a say.

There were a lot of people from all over the SJ area there, though I'm surprised I didn't see some key people from the northern part of the state. The announces attendance for the Haddonfield-AC game was a capacity 1,050, and I'd bet more folks came from more than 20 miles away than from less. Also, most of the vehicles parked on the street and many of those in the parking lots were humungous SUVs. This is all by way of wondering how much gas money was spent getting to and from OC this weekend. Add to that a speeding ticket CH East coach Key Keyack got on the bridge to the island and the total is probably in the tens of thousands of dollars. God bless the UAE... I mean the USA.

Anyway, here's a link to the Cherokee-Sterling game story from today's C-P:

http://courierpostonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20051218/VARSITY/512180366/1020

Check out today's game story in tomorrow morning's paper, which will also include the first girls' basketball Monday column, this time on Clearview in the wake of its shining moment Friday night.

Moving right along, I'll be at Bishop Eustace-Holy Cross tomorrow, and Cumberland-Deptford the day after that, unless something changes. Wednesday is a day off and then it's Sterling-Heights and Christmas weekend. Ought to be fun.

Cherokee 45, Sterling 23

Cherokee is pretty good, yo.

For the second night in a row, I went to a game expecting to focus on one tall girl and came away impressed with another. At least this afternoon, Laura Sweeney had a complete game. 25 points, 9 boards, a few dimes, a couple steals, a couple blocks. I've seen Kate Brennan have a comparably awesome game before, so her stature doesn't really suffer from today's experience, but I now know a bit better what to expect from Cherokee. The whole team made an impression with its defense and ball movement. Everyone in the Chiefs lineup could pass, and most of them were skilled and smart defenders. The Cherokee zone really dictated the game to the point that Sterling hardly got any opportunities to run its half-court offense and maybe get Brennan or Cassi Bryant into some kind of flow.

There were at least a couple of coaches in attendance (Heights and RV stood out) and whoever was there has to come away wary of Cherokee. I think it would be dangerous, however, to conclude that Sterling can't handle full-court pressure. The Knights have girls who can handle the ball and, to some extent, breaking a press is about confidence and experience, two areas Sterling is still lacking at this early moment in the season. This will be a much different team come February, if past history is any guide. The question is if they'll still be in the league hunt when they get it together. Lucky for them, the Colonial doesn't have a team without its own set of doubts and demons.

I haven't draw much ire for the preseason material, which is good I guess. Usually, by the end of the day that the stuff appears in the paper I've gotten at least four or five emails about athletes or teams I've disrespected either by position or omission.

Anyway, here's a link to the RV-Boro game story from today's paper:

www.courierpostonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20051217/VARSITY/512170380/1020

And here's the Tasha Cannon feature:

http://www.courierpostonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20051217/VARSITY/512170344/1020

And the Preseason Top 20:

http://www.courierpostonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20051217/VARSITY/512170326/1023

And 25 or so players to watch:

http://www.courierpostonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20051217/VARSITY/512170327/1023

And, finally, the conference outlooks:

http://www.courierpostonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20051217/VARSITY/512170328/1023

I'll be down in Ocean City for the big Wilson-Gami game tomorrow afternoon. I'll most likely be hitting Mack and Manco's a couple hours beforehand if anybody has a change of heart and wants to rip me in person.

Willingboro 66, RV 54

I was looking forward to seeing Chelsea Cole play, but according to Coach Corrado, she's been struggling with back problems. She still put up 11 points and 10 boards, but that was rather a quiet night in light of Tiffany Crews' 17 and 18. She's not Crystal, of course, but no one may ever be again.

Willingboro played very solidly tonight, especially since the Chimeras start a sophomore and a freshman, both of whom played pretty well. The soph, Jasmine Rich, had nine points a few steals, and the frosh had some big boards. Boro absolutely owned the glass pretty much all night. That, combined with RV's struggles from the foul line, was enough to put Boro in the driver's seat. RV made a run near the end, but they were hurt by the fact that Cole was already on the bench for good with the back troubles.

I think the game will be closer when they play in Mt. Holly later in the season. It's impossible to say if the teams are located correctly in the Top 20 without seeing the rest of the area play.

Here's a funny thing that happened off the court:

In the middle of the second half, I heard some people sitting behind me gasp, and it took a second to figure out what had happened. As it turns out, a little kid jumped down from eight or nine rows up, into the gap between the two sets of bleachers at midcourt. It's a pretty big drop, but kids are resilient and nimble. The thing is, this kid never got to the floor. There was a length of pipe about eight inches long sticking up out of the end of the wood bench -- I guess it's part of the locking system for when the bleachers are put away -- and the kid's shirt had caught on it. So he was just hanging there by his shirt, swinging in midair, helpless to get down and helpless to climb back up. I stuck out my arm, though, and he scrambled back up to his seat. He wasn't hurt at all so we all started laughing uncontrollably. Luckily, I think it happened during a time out because I didn't miss anything.

When I got back to the office, some mild surprises were waiting for me:

Camden Catholic almost lost to Timber Creek. Not a huge surprise, but still. I'm hoping the Irish aren't looking past all the good teams on their schedule just because they play a lot of great teams.

Wilson annihilates Lenape. It was close at halftime, but apparently the Tigers didn't take too kindly to the Inky dropping them to No. 3. Sunday should be very interesting.

Haddonfield beats Heights. Not really a surprise. The Colonial is like the Big 5; anything can and does happen, and the Bulldogs are a quality squad.

CH East beats BE. Again, not a shock, except for that BE had only three scorers. I guess I just assumed they had some role players to go along with Lazos and Hudspeth, but perhaps not. Time will tell. On an aside: Kim Keyack wrote on her preseason info form that we were not, under any circumstances, to rank her team in the top 10. I had East at No. 11 when I saw that, so I just kept them there. It may not be possible to meet her demand much longer.

Eastern beats West 66-10. That's a big, big score from a team not known as a powerhouse. Could be a tough year for the Lions, or perhaps the Vikes are about to shock us all.

Penns Grove beat Gloucester. That came out of left field. Looks like the Lions came out cold and couldn't get it going in time. Nice win for the Devils, though.

Clayton almost takes out Glassboro. As indicated in the T20, I'm not a believer in Glassboro yet. You don't lose a player of Sakera Young's caliber and just heal right up from day one.

Cumberland beats Gloucester Catholic. Not a result you're used to seeing in girls' hoops. Lisa G. needs to recruit some of that undefeated, speed-rich soccer team onto the hardwood.

Clearview beats Deptford. Maybe the biggest upset of the night. Congratulations to the Pioneers, who have endured a few rough seasons.

AC squeaks by Oakcrest. It's hard to believe Tasha Cannon wasn't the best player on the floor, but Whitney Walker must have given her a run for her money with 23 points and 10 boards. The Vikings will have to represent a little better to have a shot against Holy Spirit tomorrow.

And so, one day of the season is in the books, and it was a good one. Tomorrow is a little slim, by comparison, but we make up for it with one of very few great Sundays. I'll be at Sterling-Cherokee tomorrow at 1 p.m. for Knights coach Kate McDonald's first game on the sideline. Sterling is ranked and the Chiefs are not, but at this point in the season that doesn't mean anything. The game is pretty much a toss-up.

See you there.

C-P Preseason Top 20

A sneak preview of the rankings will be a regular feature of this blog. During the soccer season, I usually posted the list as soon as I finished it, on Saturday nights or Sunday mornings, and I expect that pattern to continue.

Anyway, here it is, followed by some explanation/analysis. Before anybody gets all pissed off, remember that the preseason rankings are just a jumping off point. I could list what I believe are the bottom 20 teams instead, and results would still fix the rankings inside a month.

1. Woodrow Wilson
2. Absegami
3. Camden Catholic
4. Holy Spirit
5. Bishop Eustace
6. Willingboro
7. Atlantic City
8. Timber Creek
9. Rancocas Valley
10. Haddon Heights
11. Cherry Hill East
12. Haddonfield
13. Washington Twp.
14. Sacred Heart
15. Williamstown
16. Sterling
17. Salem
18. Collingswood
19. Kingsway
20. Haddon Twp.

Almost: Cherokee, Lenape, Glassboro, Paul VI, Deptford, Trenton Catholic, Gloucester

The top three teams are obviously a level ahead of the rest. I thought hard about flipping WW and CC, making the Irish No. 1 and the Tigers No. 3, but I figured it was more trouble than it was worth and the defending TOC champions deserved the benefit of the doubt.

The rest of the list is kind of a crapshoot. I was lucky with a large amount of preseason information to work with, and I know many of the coaches well enough to be able to read between the lines. But this is still far from a perfect process. I'm sure I'll hear from a lot of folks about the results of preseason scrimmages, but that stuff doesn't matter to me. Coaches all approach them with different intentions, and most of them are trying out some stuff that would never make it to the court in a real game. Many folks take them very seriously, and continue to mention the games as real, concrete results well into the playoffs. For me the season starts at 3:45 on Friday and whatever happened prior to that moment immediately ceases to mater in the least.

Against my better judgment, I resisted putting in a fourth Olympic National team (Paul VI) and kept the two Oly American teams that finished last year ranked (CH East and Wash. Twp.). East obviously belonged, of course, but I wasn't sure about the Maids. That whole division full of big schools is on probation, pending the likes of Lenape and Cherokee proving themselves. Those teams are forever bleating about their unforgiving schedules, but I'd much rather be there than in the National with WW, CC and BE.

In the absence of any reliable info, I went to the final rankings of past years for wisdom, a fact which explains some of the last few spots. Did you know that Haddon Township hasn't finished outside the Top 20 since 1997? Or that Haddonfield has been ranked every year since 1992? Basically, any team that has finished in the T20 each of the last three seasons -- or the span of the seniors' high school careers -- automatically got a spot. That turned out to be 12 teams. Any team that was ranked last year and is bringing back its best player -- like Salem -- got back in. I also tried to represent all the leagues. The BCSL only got two teams, but they're both in the Top 10.

Anyway, as I said before, this is just a jumping-off point, and the list shouldn't be taken as seriously as many are inevitably going to take it. Every team starts with a clean slate, and I expect the first regular-season rankings, which will come out after the holidays, to look very different.

Season Eve

The 2005-06 season tips off tomorrow for NJSIAA schools, and the sky is weeping with excitement. I sure hope the snow isn't so severe that it jeopardizes any games.

Check out the Junaid feature here:

http://www.courierpostonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20051215/VARSITY/512150353/1020

On Saturday, there will be overviews of each division race, a preseason Top 20 with short profiles of each team, a chart of about 25 of the top returning individual players, and a feature story on Atlantic City's Tasha Cannon, in addition to Friday night game coverage. The non-live material is finished, and it could appear on the web as early as midday tomorrow.

After I finished yesterday's post, I realized there was an observation I forgot to include. I loved how CH West coach Bridget Garrity-Bantle roamed all over the court and along the baselines to make sure she saw the game and communicated with her players as well as possible. It was certainly a reminder that scrimmages are often more like practices than games, and it was also a look into the personal style and passion of a particular coach. I've seen Coach G-B on the soccer sidelines as well as coaching basketball, and I can't remember anyone more invested. Yesterday's scrimmage reminded me of the time, a year ago, when Coach G-B called me on an error in my judgment regarding a story on the seemingly annual flurry of transfers. She was 100 percent right in that instance, and I'd allowed a rough personal patch to make me complacent. Those transfer stories are tricky territory, and taking the easy way didn't turn out to be the right thing to do.

This season has its share of transfer intrigue: an interesting topic for another time perhaps. It's one of those confluences that happens less and less rarely in high school sports: the important issue that no one -- not the players, the parents, the new coach or the old coach -- really wants to talk about on the record.

Anyway, some time tonight I'll be posting the a sneak preview of the Preseason Top 20 on this site, along with some analysis. Check back later.

AC at CH West

I went to see Tasha Cannon play and came away duly impressed. There will be a story on her and her team in Saturday's edition, along with the normal preseason material.

I got there for the last 10 seconds of the second quarter and saw the varsities play for the equivalent of a half. Cannon was very obviously the best player on the floor and AC was nearly as obviously the better team, but West didn't look bad in the time that I saw. Junior guard Sarah Ricci his a couple of long threes, and she has a nice stroke when she gets her feet set. Lindsay Kerr used her body well on the boards and Angie Wilmer is one of the best all-around athletes in the entire area, though I'm guessing basketball is her third sport behind lacrosse and soccer.

Looking at Wilmer and Cannon made me think: basketball is probably the team sport that's most difficult to excel at without specializing. Great athletes can be great soccer players for three months and then move on to something else, or great lacrosse or softball/baseball players. But you look at a kid like Wilmer and just know that as athletic as she is, she'll never be the hoops player Cannon is, and would have had to specialize a long time ago to change that fact. There are a lot of multi-sport stars playing basketball and there are a lot of great basketball players around, but the groups are almost mutually exclusive. There are a few very good players who excel at other sports -- like Kennedy from Heights, Gallagher from CC and Dawson from Eastern -- but by and large, unless you're playing basketball nine months of the year, stardom is out of the question.

I'm finishing the preview stuff tonight and I'll take most of the day off tomorrow. The plan is to post the Preseason Top 20 in this space sometime tomorrow night, so check back if you like. After that, I'll be covering six games in the next seven days, including two Sterling games:

Fri. - RV-Willingboro
Sat. - Sterling-Cherokee
Sun. - Gami-Wilson
Mon. - Eustace-Holy Cross
Tues. - Cumberland-Deptford
Thurs. - Sterling-Heights

That schedule is subject to change, of course, but I'm looking forward to it.

Hearts at Heights

It took about three minutes of preseason basketball to make me pine for the start of the regular season, when the games actually matter. My all acounts, both the teams I saw today are above-average squads, but there was no flow to the game, no urgency. I'm convinced that has to do with the fact that there is no real reward for success and no consequences for failure.

I guess I'd have to say Haddon Heights owned the first half, winning the first two quarters by about 10. I was very impressed with Samantha Carter, and Meredith Kennedy obviously has game, though she didn't press the subject so very much. That could be by design, with the coaches trying to spread the ball around and take a look at some different things ahead of the season. I have seen MK play spectacularly, as early as her freshman year.

The first half alerted me to how small SHeart is, and what an uphill battle rebounding is likely to be for that team. That's where they'll miss the transfers the most, I guess, particularly Teena Marsh. Any yet, they really got it together in the second half, clobbering Heights by 20. The Lions have some nice little guards. As there were no numbers and no rosters, I couldn't figure out who was who, but the backcourt players were quick and solid ball handlers, and after halftime they were able to nick a couple rebounds by going to open space. The freshman guard, Ashley I think is her name, is going to be a good player if she can stay out of foul trouble. She took a nice charge along the sideline in the fourth quarter that was called a block (it's preseason for the officials, too), she's got some handle and showed a nice touch a couple times. The forwards, undersized as they were, played much better and smarter in the second half.

Sacred Heart started to hit some shots late in the game, which brings me to the most frustrating thing for me, and I'm sure for the coaches: point-blank bricks. For a while, neither team could buy a layup to save its life. To be more precise, both teams got plenty of layups, but still couldn't buy a bucket. And this is something that should be completely unaffected by the lack of continuity that's inherent in preseason games. If these teams are going to get where they each want to go, the shots from three feet and closer are going to have to be up around 95 percent. Today, I'd have put that number at about 50.

Tomorrow I'm probably going to be at Cherry Hill West to check out Atlantic City's Tasha Cannon. After that, praise the lord, the next basketball game I'll watch will actually count for something.

One week to go

I've just done my last task for the boys' soccer season, updating the unofficial blog, and now it's pretty much all girls' hoops all the time until the end of March. I've been neck deep in preseason info the last few days and the preview material is almost finished. I'm just waiting to hear from a few stray coaches, including: Delran, Trenton Catholic, Riverside, Willingboro, Moorestown, No. Burlington, Pennsauken, Camden, Pemberton, GCIT, Clayton, Pleasantville, Millville, OLMA, Gateway, Paulsboro, Woodbury, Pennsauken Tech, Winslow, Triton, among others. The problem divisions are the Burlco ones, as you could probably guess. The CAL American II and the Trico Royal are finished.

If anybody knows there are new coaches in these schools, let me know.

I'm going to try to get ahead on the little features that we do, starting with a story on Rashidat Junaid due out in a few days. I'll be going to as many scrimmages as I can, and I'll probably post a couple times about them in the next several days. It looks like I'll be at RV-Willingboro on opening night, but everything could change at the drop of a hat.

Just 10 days left...

... until the start of the season, and it's time to start thinking seriously about the top 20. Coming off a week of vacation, I was extremely gratified by the number of preseason forms that coaches have already returned to the C-P, but there are still some calls to be made over the next several days. Most likely, I'll be able to get to a few scrimmages as well to reacquaint myself with some teams I have not seen since I was last in charge of this beat, back in 2002-03.

This year's seniors were freshmen then, but I remember a lot of them and a few in particular.

Actually, one of the first games I covered that season was a Saturday afternoon at Winslow, when I saw Rashidat Junaid for the first time. She scored like 26, including the game-winning bucket with two seconds left, but she wasn't the only impressive ninth grader. Minutemaid forward Amanda Jennings came off the bench to score something like 24, including 10-for-10 from the foul line in crunch time, to earn herself the nickname "Kool-Aid" from the Winslow crowd. Now, I've seen Ra play lots of games since then, over the last two seasons at Camden Catholic, and I know what to expect from her, but I haven't see Amanda "Kool-Aid" Jennings play since that day. It's something I'm looking forward to.

Other great players I saw have great games as freshmen that year:

Timber Creek's Erin Floyd really impressed on the two or three occasions I saw her... Bishop Eustace's Krystal Lazos was unstoppable in a playoff upset win at Gloucester Catholic... Kristina Rosario was still playing a strong second fiddle to Shontae Barnes in the post for Gami, but not for long... Holy Spirit guard Jordan Sykes had a trial by fire, facing Willingboro's pressure in an early-season showcase event.

I'm sure if I went back through my scorebooks, I could find several more impact freshmen from that season, but if I focus on the girls who were obvious start back then, I'm certain to miss a lot of worthwhile seniors who have emerged since. I've certainly seen enough girls' basketball over the last two seasons, especially 2003-04, to be able to pick the rythym back up without too much trouble, but as always, I can't do a great job without help from everybody. I need to know where the stories are, on and off the court. The SJ girls' basketball community is one of the deepest, most alive and diverse around, and there has never been any shortage of intriguing characters. I'm counting on you all to help me get them onto the page.