Camden Cath. 70, Spirit 30

What I'm listenting to: Eva Cassidy... Ben Folds Five... the Beach Boys... the Moody Blues... the Police... Chopin... the Shins...

It wasn't a competitive game, but I'm glad I was there anyway. If I hadn't watched it with my won eyes, I don't think I would have believed it.

This was an old-fashioned, thorough ass-kicking, and I don't mean that as any disrespect to Holy Spirit. The Spartans had a great year and nothing will ever be able to take that away, but the team that beat RBC on Saturday simply did not make the trip to Lakewood. Combine that with a Camden Catholic performance as sharp as any I've seen and this result was inevitable.

As far as I'm concerned, Junaid locked up Player of the Year tonight. A friend and colleague from the Burlington County Times, John Lewis, is fond of saying that you don't pick a Player of the Year, you just wait until the playoffs and that person will make themselves known. After the regular season, I was probably leaning Tasha Cannon's way, and as unfair as it would be to torpedo her on one game, Junaid made it easy tonight. 32 and 19 is a major statement and, as somebody near me said in the third quarter, the only things keeping her from more boards where Holy Spirit's inability to get shots off and Camden Catholic's inability to miss any.

This game went just how CC drew it up.

Ra was unstoppable early, and the Irish kept feeding the beast. Crew was efficient in the first half, Matera was silent, and Spirit stayed in it. The second half comes, Spirit tries some things on D to slow Junaid, and all of a sudden: whoops! Matera is wide open. 3, 3, 3, game over. CC won the third quarter 29-6.

I think a lot of us have been guilty of underestimating Camden Catholic. I know I didn't expect them to play the way they did today, and do that to Holy Spirit. Part of it is that they don't blow many teams out. They just win games. Though many will say that inconsistency of performance is the mark of a weak team, I disagree. I think it can be the mark of a great team.

The most talented team I ever saw play, as I've said before, was the Willingboro squad of three years ago, Crystal's junior year. But that team blew everybody out by like 20 points all year until they got punched in the nose by Shabazz in the state final and didn't know what to do. They hadn't hit a truly important shot all season long, whereas this CC team has hit a ton of big shots. A lot of them came against teams that had no business pushing the Irish, but nonetheless, they were big moments that could have gone another way.

So we send CC forth as the area's first state finalist. I read on the forum that Haddonfield beat Heights for the SJ Group 2 title, and congratulations to the Bulldogs. So far, I'm 3-for-4 as far as picking winners, and I nailed the CC score at 70. Of course I thought Spirit would have 67, but that's not important. Gloucester was the only pick that didn't come through for me, but I'll get over it. I was pretty close to perfect during the soccer season.

Sometime between now and tomorrow night, I'll be posting again. As I mentioned before, I'm taking Wednesday night off from coverage, charging my batteries for the weekend. But my heart will be in Deptford.