Sterling 54, Glassboro 50, 2OT

What I'm listening to: Bruce Springsteen... the Kinks... Beanie Sigel... Coldplay... James Taylor... David Bowie... Nellie McKay... Chopin... Stevie Wonder...

First, I'd like to send whatever good thoughts and prayers possible out to Sterling coach Kate McDonald, who gave birth to a healthy baby girl, Mackenzie, just one day after losing her father to a heart attack. I can hardly imagine the feelings that must be at work in her and her family right now, but I can't think of a better example of life and love's triumph over death. As bad as Tuesday must have been, I hope Wednesday's joy eclipses it.

And Kate's team won, so that's a good start for her and a wonderful one for little Mackenzie, who -- as I understand it -- was born sometime during warmups. Basically, the Silver Knights are undefeated in Mackenzie's lifetime, and they're just two games from another SJ Group 2 championship.

Amazingly, this is the second time I've seen Sterling go to overtime. I didn't even think of that until way after the game was over and my story was written. It was also the Knights' fourth overtime game of the year, which has got to be at or near the top of South Jersey. And this game was just that wild. I lost count of the times I just shook my head and the crazy stuff that happened. For example: I never would have bet the teams would have a total of four foul shots to effectively win the game in the last eight seconds of the first OT and make excatly zero of them.

Glassboro -- and especially Rachael Fowler -- deserves a lot of credit for battling the way it did. I thought the Bulldogs were toast the moment Althena Gaines fouled out in the first OT, especially since Shamira Rothmiller, who really showed me something, had already gone off with five personals. Glassboro was missing two starters for about six minutes of overtime and still almost pulled it out.

This is the best I've see Sterling play, as a team, all year, and that includes the Collingswood game that I saw. From what I've heard, this might be the first time Katie Brennan and Cassi Bryant had played well at the same time, and it made a big difference. There were moments when it was clear they weren't on the same page, but a mutual desire to survive seemed to streamline those differences out of them. In the end, they were both making plays, as were the rest of the players, especially Karima Blackwell, Gab Gregory and Nicole Mancini. Blackwell was everywhere the last two minutes, and Gregory was a defensive force all night long. She's a much, much more confident player than she was even a few weeks ago.

Unfortunately for Sterling, Haddonfield seems to have rediscovered its ability to score a little bit. The Bulldogs buried Cinnaminson tonight. Elsewhere in G2, Heights' win over Haddon Township wasn't so surprising, though the score kind of was. It seems like the Garnets just took its last half against the Hawks and duplicated that dominance over a whole game. And finally, Collingswood fell to West tech in overtime. I'm not going to say I called this one, because I don't usually make predictions, but I will say there are probably a large number of folks out there more surprised than me. I feel safe in saying that the Collingswood coaches are not among them, however, and that's a good thing. It's hard enough to lose without the guilt of possibly having underestimated your opponent, but after talking with Big Joe about West Tech, I know that the Colls' concern was of an appropriate magnitude.

In Group 4, no real surprises. Sad to see the season end for Washington Township, Williamstown and Cherokee, and congrats to AC for scoring an out-of-area "upset" at Southern Regional. It's always good to see a SJ team beat up on some other are, but even better when that team is seeded or ranked higher because then any perception of out-of-area superiority is seriously undermined.

Tomorrow is the big Paul VI-Holy Spirit game, which I will be sad to miss. I'll be covering Timber Creek at Woodrow Wilson. The other game I'd love to see is Palmyra-Gloucester. A Lailah Pratt-Chelsea Conner duel will be worth the price, I guarantee it.

I had hoped to do a little story on Parsiphany Pender of Cumberland, and I think they were returned, but not till after 5:30, when I was in the watching-the-game zone. If the Colts win tomorrow, I'll pick that back up and try to get something in for Saturday. I haven't decided where I'll be on Friday and Saturday, but there's almost no way to go wrong. Every game has something going for it. I'll let everybody know sometime tomorrow.