Gloucester 43, GCath 42

I didn't post about the Gloucester Catholic-Gloucester thriller yesterday because, honestly, I was done with girls' basketball and work in general in my head. Between working too many hours and chasing the CC-HF score on deadline, there was no love left in my heart for the game. I'm hoping and expecting to get it back by Tuesday, for WW-CC.

Anyway, just a couple thoughts on the battle of Gloucester City:

I thought, for a moment that Catholic's scoring woes had taken a much-needed rest, but they walked in the door just in time to rescue Gloucester. The Lions also did plenty to rescue themselves, hitting big shots to take big chunks out of a big lead, but the last minute of the game nobody scored. I felt like a more offensively confident team might have found a way there, but those GC girls's egos haven't had the easiest time of it. My heart broke for them because they really played their hearts out, especially Alyssa Reiter. The look on Lisa Gedaka's face afterwords was painful to see, because I know she was thrilled with the way her team played for 31/2 quarters.

I thought there maybe one tactical error on the part of GC -- and I preface this comment by stating that I believe Lisa G. is solidly in the top five GB coaches in this area, and this is strictly a hindsight thing. But Chelsea Connor picked up her fourth foul pretty early in the fourth quarter, and Reiter was able to take her consistently off the dribble. As far as GC was concerned, I would have liked to see them go at Connor a bit more one-on-one. I know she can block shots, but every time she tries she risks the whistle. You get her out of there, you take away a good foul shooter and unclog the post a lot. Again in hindsight, she ended up deciding the game with defense and 6-for-6 from the line.

Congratulations to Gloucester, though. That's a great win in extremely exciting circumstances, coming from way back in front of a packed gym. Kelly Cerrone hit a big shot, Havers hit a couple, even Erin McAdams chipped in with an unlikely three. If she can hit that shot more consistently in the future, and I expect her to, teams are going to have to guard her more closely, she'll have more room to make plays with the pass and she'll turn into a really dynamite HS ballplayer.