Heights 45, Haddon Twp. 31

This post will also appear on the official C-P site. Feel free to visit there as well. This blog will eventually be phased out, but I'll let you all know when it stops being current.

So let's start with the topic that lots of folks are talking about, the Nora Murphy situation.

I knew the skeleton of the tale before walking into the Haddon Township gym, and I'm a bit more informed now, but the while thing still makes me shake my head a little bit. Murphy, the Hawks' junior point guard, left the team for personal reasons after the Paul VI game. After talking with Tommie Mulligan today, it seems like the parting was quasi-amicable, but considering the timing it's certainly unfortunate. One person I talked to made that very point, and I agree: with the playoffs just a couple weeks away, and your team in a bracket where a hot streak could end in a championship, why not just stick it out? Why not finish what you started, and then just stay home senior year? I can't imagine what the rest of the team must be thinking at this point. But if it were me, and my teammate did the same thing, I'd be angry.

I have a feeling the Haddon Township players feel that way, too. Here's a story: I was sitting amidst a bunch of Township students and when the game was getting away in the fourth quarter, they openly discussed the possibility of chanting, "Put Nora in," but then decided against it because the other players "would be so pissed." And this is coming from a group that had few qualms kicking sand on the line between humor and bad taste all evening, so I can only imagine the kind of venom flowing in the halls of that school.

This situation certainly says something about how things have changed. High school sports are an opportunity to represent more than yourself, to play for your school and, in many cases, your community. The rise of AAU and other outside interests has obviously had a negative effect on that. In the best-case scenario, I would think AAU would get the individual stuff out of the way, freeing kids to play a team game during the season. But it workd the opposite way. Players, and especially parents, expect the same ass-kissing from high school coaches that they get from coaches they're paying.

Unlike high school coaches, club and AAU coaches aren't in business to look after a whole human being's development. Hell, they're not even in business of winning games. If a coach gets a reputation for securing his players lots of positive exposure leading to scholarship offers, tournament victories don't even matter. High school coaches, on the other hand, have to keep the big picture in mind, both for the individual kids and for the program as a whole. Anybody who starts giving in to demands, substituting anyone else's judgments for his/her own, is making a deal with the devil. I can think of several coaches and programs who have begun to dance that number with varying degrees of success. I can think of some -- Haddon Township and Gloucester Catholic spring right to mind -- that have resisted, and some might say suffered for it.

It's a sign of the times. I didn't expect to sound so old so soon, but I can't help missing the good old days.

A quick rundown of some other observations from the game:

This was the most balanced game I've seen Haddon Heights play as far as contributions from all five starters. Casey orlando was money today, and Joslyn Eppright -- who scored a total of one point in the first two HH games I saw -- was knocking down shots.

Kennedy didn't have the best game I've seen, but it would have been hard for her to live up to what she's done other times I've seen her play. Carter played well in the second half, but she pulled one of her disappearing acts in the first.

I enjoyed the Haddon Township youth game at halftime, as did the Township students sitting behind me. Both the point guards were terrific for both teams, in a tiger-by-the-tail sort of way. One girl was a particularly aggressive offensive player, and the high school students started urging her to shoot every time she touched the ball. She usually caved. It was a running clock, and the "official" swallowed the whistle, which made everything more fun. A girl took a damn-near-halfcourt shot at the buzzer, and it damn near went in. Most of the gym was riveted to the game by then, and the place was ready to go berserk.

This may well have been the last time I'll see Haddon Township this season, so I wanted to say how impressed I've been with the progress of Colleen Greway. When the Hawks beat Haddonfield earlier this season, I made her a Player of the Week and, at the time, Tommie said she wasn't supposed to be one of the team's offensive focal points coming into the season. But she was their best player when I saw them play Sterling a couple of weeks ago, and she was unquestionably the leader of the team against Heights. The two passes she made late in the first half -- particularly the one in the last five seconds -- were pretty slick.

And finally, I got back to the office to find that Haddonfield lost at Sterling, leaving Heights at the top of the Colonial with two losses and Collingswood alone in second with three. That means that if the Colls beat Sterling on Saturday and no major upsets happen, the Panthers will play Heights for a share of the title on Thursday, and the Garnets will be playing to keep it all for themselves. If Sterling beat Collingswood Saturday, then Heights can lose once in the last week and still be the sole Colonial champ, with the Colls, Haddonfield and Sterling vying for second.

The only other two SJ divisions up for grabs are the ones in the Tri-County Conference. Cumberland pretty much has a piece of the Royal, with a chance to have it all in the event of a win over Williamstown this coming week. Glassboro is a game up on Wildwood, with very winnable games the rest of the way.

I'll be accompanying one of our interns to the Hammonton-Pennsauken game tomorrow afternoon so she can do a story on one of the Indians. Then I'm going to Delran-Westampton Tech. Saturday I'll be at the aforementioned Sterling-Collingswood game, and then Mainland-Eustace on Sunday down at the Ventnor City Shootout.

See you there.