UNOFFICIAL C-P Girls' Hoops

CC 66, IHA 36

2006-03-11T18:37:00.000-05:00

When will the Irish play a close game? Who knows. Who cares. This team is really, really good.

I was extremely happy to see this program take care of business in such a decisive fashion today. From the first quarter on, the result was bever really in doubt, and it just became a showcase for the Irish stars. I think Ra has probably played her way into first-team all-state status over the last two games, and Jasmine Crew certainly has to be in the picture as well. Crew had eight assists today, and Ra was listed with six blocks, but I could swaer she earned a couple more. Plus, there were a bunch of times when IHA players left the floor for a shot, saw Ra hovering, and decided to just take the travel rather than face rejection.

There isn't much else to say about this game, except to talk about the IHA fans seated behind press row. They started out looking for calls against Junaid, who can't help that she's bigger than everybody else. Then they worked on the Blue Eagle guards, yelling to them to "Just take the ball," from Crew and Matera, as if it were just that simple. Then they went quiet for a while, and there were mumblings of grudging admiration. Then, with CC up 30-plus and rotating its bench in, they started screaming for the Irish to get their starters off the floor. This was the funniest thing, since by the end of the game, CC was down to the JV and IHA still hadn't gone more than sis or seven deep.

The Irish are playing great, but I have a feeling this will be the last time this year they win a game by 30. The way I figure it, they're slotted for the No. 2 seed behind Shabazz. The game I'm watching right now, the Group B final, will have a big effect on the rest of the seedings since Morris Catholic is undefeated. The Crusaders don't play anybody, but the zero-loss thing will probably get them the No. 3 seed if they win today, though it could very well still go to Bloomfield Tech (if BT beats Salem). MC is up 15-6 on Trenton Catholic at the end of the first, but this game is far from over. If MC loses and BT and Gami both win, BT will probably get the No. 3 and Gami the No. 4, with Trenton Central at No. 5 and the Group 2 champ (Rumson maybe?) No. 6. Unless Salem pulls the upset of the century, the Group 2 champ is almost guaranteed the No. 6 seed, I think.

At least that's how it should go. There's a lot of basketball to be played yet, and I'm not on the seeding committee this year. All I can really give is an educated guess.

Game update: Jasmyra Saunders just chewed out a ref and earned herself a technical foul. The Iron Mikes are in a 27-8 hile with 4:12 left in the half, and I don't think TC has the coaching to come back. This game is pretty much over. I'm not so much wowed by Morris Catholic as I am unimpressed by Trenton Catholic. The TC defense didn't have a defender within 10 feet of the MC shooters in the first minute, and they're getting outsmarted at every turn.

Anyway, I'll be back again tomorrow. Should be fun.

THREE TEAMS LEFT

2006-03-11T01:15:00.000-05:00

THREE TEAMS LEFT...

... and one will see action tomorrow. The Irish have begun to get the respect they deserve statewide, but the north will get its first look tomorrow. It's hard to keep the journalistic distance sometimes, when our area teams go up against teams from other areas, but I think that's natural. The professional in me will sit there on press row the next couple of days with a deliberately blank, even bored-looking expression, but my chest, my heart might well be pounding.

Anyway, of the three opponents SJ teams will play this weekend, I know the least about Immaculate Heart Academy. The program is a frequent visitor to this level, but Group A in the north doesn't have perennial studs like RBC and Vianney. This is a seven-loss team, and they just barely got by DePaul in the sectional semis, so I figure it's safe to say this won't be CC's most talented opponent, but strange things do happen. Superior teams do get beaten, even when it counts. Since the Irish haven't been here since 1981, I'd be shocked if they took this game too lightly, though. After all, this game is what the whole season was about.

Sunday's finals are both a little more clear to me.

In Group 1, Salem is obviously in a very tough spot against Bloomfield Tech. If the Riverside squad with Sabra and Baendu couldn't beat this team two years ago, the Rams certainly have their work cut out for them. There are a couple other factors working against them as well. First, the Trico Classic isn't the greatest preparation for a team like Bloomfield Tech, which has played Shabazz, CC, Wilson, and just about everybody else in the state top 10. The tournament is its own prep, to some extent, but the SJ Group 1 draw was Classic-dominated, and South Hunterdon -- while a nice team playing well -- isn't full of D1 talent. The other thing is Salem's style of play. The Rams tore Gloucester apart with a fast pace. They just forgot about running an offense and attacked the basket. If they try to run with BT, however, it's a recipe for disaster. In all likelihood, there is no pace in the high school girls' game high enough to take the Spartans out of their comfort zone. The team that stands the best chance against BT is the one that can change the tempo, like a pitcher changing speeds, and can do damage in a half-court offense.

That said, of course, anything can happen and often has, and it never hurts to have players who believe in themselves like Brittany Smith and the girls do. They know how to play at this time of the year, and they'll fight to the final buzzer.

In Group 4, it's the Braves vs. the Bees, and I feel like Gami is almost as big a favorite as CC is in Group A. It wasn't long ago that the Asbury Park Press' Neil Schuman lampooned the Braves' habitual disappointment in the postseason, calling them Origami. Don't ask me why Neil was even worrying about Absegami, since his paper doesn't cover the school, but no matter. Those days are gone. Prince Charming kissed the Braves on the lips in the form of the Class of 2008, and the spell was broken with last year's state title. Now Gami can just play, with it's titanic front line. Bayonne's front line is a little undersized, but it has been surprising people all season. This team hasn't seen anything the size of Gami, but I wouldn't expect the Bees to be intimidated long, or at all.

The keys to the game for the Braves, in my mind, are simple and few: Take care of the basketball. Stay out of foul trouble. Get it to Booker. That's it. The rest should take care of itself.

That's it for me. I'll be heading up to scenic Dover Township late tomorrow morning in an attempt to catch the noon game, right before the Group A girls' final. I expect a lot of CC folks to make the trip. God knows they'd be camping out in the parking lot at Toms River North if it were the boys.

Gami 59. Trenton Central 44

2006-03-10T15:11:00.000-05:00

What I'm listening to: David Bowie... Dido... Renaissance... Suzanne Vega... DMX... Bright Eyes... Stevie Wonder... They Might Be Giants... the Pixies...

I've actually got the Temple-St. Joe's game on without the sound. I was trhilled for my Owls yesterday, and now I'm hoping for a comeback. They're down 12 with 16 left. Make that 15. Ouch.

Anyway, I had so much stuff to do last night that I figured I'd postpone the post until today, and I'm just now getting to it. Of course, the stuff that's naturally fresh in my mind the night of a game is kind of fuzzy now, but one thing still stands right out: Tara Booker is pretty great. Cintella Spotwood was terrific for TC last night, and really had the Braves at a loss as to how to stop her for a while, but when Booker was on the floor, she was the best player out there.

The player I always want to compare her to in my mind is De'ree Fooks from Wilson, probably because they're about the same height, they both haul in a ton of boards, play offense facing the basket, and will be back next year. Fooks is maybe still a quicker defender and perhaps a little better at getting to the hoop, but Booker's shot has become a consistent weapon. Fooks doesn't take very many threes anymore, which is understandable when her ability allows her to drive for high-percentage looks.

The other major factor on that team right now is Connie James, who has inspired me to think about coming up with SJ all-defensive team. Obviously, if I did, she't be on it. Gami went to a zone and then a box-and-one in the second half, with James on CSpotwood, and while I think TC did plenty to hinder themselves, James really slowed her girl down. On offense, she was the Braves surest handle down the stretch, and she grabbed four huge boards in the fourth quarter.

Another thing: it's great to see Krissy Rosario playing with some passion again. She only put down four last night, but she was really big on the boards, she ran the floor, she played good D,made a couple steals. In general, she affected the game, whereas earlier in the season she'd been something of a non-factor.

I mentioned Trenton's ineptitude against the zone a moment ago. It was so pronounced that I was actually surprised when Gami went back to man-to-man, even though it's always been their primary defense. The Tornadoes were trailing, the Braves sagged off and TC just stood there, as if they were waiting for the defense to get out of the way. When they did move, it wasn't to run a play. It was streetball with refs.

By the way, Temple's still down 10 with seven left, but I think the Owls have missed like 57 foul shots in this game alone. If they're an average foul-shooting team, I think they'd not only be tied or ahead in this particular game, they might be playing for an at-large NCAA bid. At least yesterday's win over GW probably locked up an NIT invite.

SJU just got to 60 points. In Temple games, it's almost always first-team-to-60-wins. Now the Owls are down 12 with under four to play. Not looking good. Man, the Owls just can't hit shots. Kind of like Haddonfield was last night, hanging around and hanging around but never able to put any offense together. My background has taught me to appreciate ugly basketball, but it can be so frustrating.

Wow. Dude just missed two one-footers that could have cut it to seven.

Anyway, I'm going to post again tonight with a rundown of the state finals to supplement to one that will run in the paper tomorrow. Till then...

Just FOUR area teams left alive...

2006-03-08T23:59:00.000-05:00

... and two will put it on the line tomorrow.

I'm frankly shocked and saddened that Woodrow Wilson was unable to pull up out of the nose dive it began on Monday. Maybe it had something to do with Ossiera Monroe's injury, but something broke in the Tigers in the second half against OC, and it obviously didn't heal. There is almost no doubt in my mind that the Wilson teamthat beat Willingboro and Spirit would have found a way to take out Monmouth, and they surely would not have been beaten by 22 points.

Perhaps Wilson just peaked too early. Coach Dyer talked in the beginning of the season about how he didn't care so much how the team was playing in the first couple of games as long as they played great at the end, but it seems like the Tigers used up their best basketball in the middle.

I hope this doesn't cool SJ's coaches on loading the schedule up with tough games. It would be easy for folks to point at Wilson's swoon and say that it had something to do with the tough slate, that maybe the Tigers were worn down. But I really believe that the disappointing result occurred despite the tough schedule, not because of it.

In other shocking upset news, Chloe Dao won Project Runway, despite the fact the nobody -- including me -- thought she had a chance. I thought Santino's collection was the best, but they penalized him for being an ass all season. Daniel V. was the clear favorite for the overall win from halfway through the season, but he underwhelmed in the runway show and especially under examination by the judges. I felt sorry for him, but he'll be back and so will Santino.

So enough about PR. Back to basketball.

Congratulations to Salem for reaching a second consecutive state final. I haven't seen the box score, but I can imagine Brittany Smith had another big night. She's been money in the playoffs the last two seasons, one of the very best big-game performers the area has right now. Unfortunately for the Rams, they're going up against Bloomfield Tech and that hasn't been any fun for any Group 1 team in quite a while.

Farewell to my favorite out-of-area player I never saw play, the Hunterdon County Dairy Princess herself, South Hunderdon senior forward Breanna Fulper.

I'm not certain which game I'll be doing tomorrow, but I have a feeling it will be the late game, Gami-Trenton Central. it's my beat, so when there's a major deadline pressure to be faced, I'll take the heat. Obviously, I'll go and watch the Group 2 game. The Bulldogs (Haddonfield) faced the Bulldogs (Rumson) two years ago on their (Haddonfield's) way to the state championship. Rumson was highly-touted then as well, ranked in the state and hot as heck. If the Haddons are a slight underdog, Gami has got to be a slight favorite, especially since Trenton Central lost to AC, a team that the Braves beat twice.

As we've seen more than once in the last week or so, however, it's not about the team that played in January or February or even yesterday, it's about the team that gets off the bus on that particular night.

I'll see you at Southern Regional.

By the way, I'm not listening to anything this time. I'm half-watching some TV Land interview with Larry David. Hilarious.

Camden Cath. 70, Spirit 30

2006-03-07T21:18:00.000-05:00

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.

Wilson 55, Ocean City 52

2006-03-07T01:52:00.000-05:00

What I'm listenting to: Jay-Z... Sarah McLaughlan... Stefanie Praytor... Ash... Interpol... Midnight Oil... Tori Amos... Nellie McKay... more Jay-Z (happy now, Dennis?)... Aqualung...

I had a lot of family in the house tonight because my cousin, Danielle Brady, is a starter for OC. Now that the Red Raiders' season is over, I can say how proud I am of how she's played. She doesn't usually make much of a dent in the scoring column, but on a team with no height, she always defends the opposing center. She fouled out trying to stop Ossiera Monroe tonight, but she played as tough as anybody out there. She's one of a bunch of juniors and sophomores that will have that team back in the Top 10 next year.

I know Wilson was hoping and even expecting to blow this game out, and it would be easy for the Tigers to be disappointed. In fact, it's almost good that our photographer didn't stay until the end of the game because the reaction shot he would have gotten wouldn't have been great. Except for the crying, you would have thought OC won the game. There were a bunch of reporters there, and Wilson kept us waiting a long time while they talked things over. That usually doesn't happen with a squad that just won a championship.

One complicating circumstance, of course, was the condition of Monroe, who went to the floor hard in the second half. Apparently, she hit the back of her head hard on the floor and suffered a concussion. It was bad enough that, after the game, an ambulance was called to take her away. I sincerely hope that everything turns out OK for her. She was really hauling in rebounds tonight, and playing strong. Only a sophomore, she's deceptively quick, and she has a chance to be a real star in the next couple years. Hopefully, her 2006 isn't over.

Anyway, my Uncle Rich (a.k.a. Coach Crane) asked me at halftime if OC had a chance to come back, and being honest, I said that it didn't look good. Wilson is basically built and tested to prevent that very thing. The Tigers are trained to win tough games and stand up to pressure, so I was probably as suprised as anybody that they got a little rattled today. OC shot the ball very well, at least compared to other times I've seen them play, and they really showed what kind of team they can be if they shoot. This effort certainly would have beaten Trenton Central.

In other news, Brittany Smith was flat-out off the hook tonight. 40 points in a sectional final. Wow, I haven't seen that since Crystal three years ago. I was disappointed in how Gloucester played with the exception on DJ Havers, who seemed like she was everywhere for the Lions. McAdams was good too, and she even made a couple threes, but as a distrubtor, she needed to find Conner a little more. To me, that was the difference in the game. Last year, Salem had the dominant force down low and took advantage of it. Today that edge should have belonged to Gloucester and the Lions couldn't make it work for them. Gloucester has the talent to be back in that game next year, but unfortunately for them, Salem returns everybody. And unfortunately for the Rams, Bllomfield Tech isn't likely to slack off any time soon, so that brick wall is still out there, waiting for them in Toms River.

Wilson gets Monmouth next, just like last year. Salem, on the other hand, will face the Hunterdon County Dairy Princess herself, Breanna Fulper, and South Hunterdon. My boss has suggested I take a much-needed day off that day, and let some other folks cover those two games, and I find it's usually smart to do what mu boss says. I thought about just going to watch, but the throught of a night way from girls basketball isn't so distasteful right now. Plus, I'll get to watch the Project Runway finale, which is of the utmost importance. Tonight's action forced me to miss my second-favorite show on TV, Rollergirls, but I'll just have to catch it on one of the replays later in the week.

Anyway, I have to thank the CH East folks, especially athletic director Bob Hulme, for being so accomodating tonight. And also Wilson AD Stanley Ash for the conversation this afternoon. And lastly, to the CP desk guys for catching a misspelling in my story. Of course, I'll be known as Sena for a little while (yes I misspelled my own first name).

Congratulations, also, to Bishop Eustace and Bordentown, whose remarkable runs ended tonight, Both of those teams upset higher seeds before falling short. That should both be very proud, because they represented South Jersey admirably.

I'll be at Lakewood for CC-Spirit tomorrow night. The great thing about the basketball playoffs is that they go by so quickly. There's no down time, like in other sports. We've all been looking forward to this game since Saturday night, but that's not a very long time.

Lucky 13 area teams left alive...

2006-03-06T00:40:00.000-05:00

... with anywhere between two and four to be eliminated Monday.

First of all, congratulations to all the teams that have made it this far, expecially Bordentown and Rancocas Valley, which don't get the coverage and credit they deserve because they're classified in Central Jersey.

The Scotties, especially, have come out of nowehere, fourth in their division behind Cinnaminson, Delran and Holy Cross and now they're just a win away from a sectional title. Way to go Latoya Taylor, Taryn Lynch and company.

Speaking of which: I was researching Bordentown's Monday night opponent, South Hunterdon, and found out their leading scorer, a girl named Breanna Fulper, is even more famous as the "Hunterdon County Dairy Princess." If you don't believe me, just google her name and see for yourself. Now, that sounds to me like some kind of beauty pageant, but it could just as easily be a little more hands-on. I keep picturing that scene in Napoleon Dynamite, where Pedro is counting the cow's nipples and Napoleon is guessing the flaws in milk. In any case, I congratulate Ms. Fulper both on her title and for her terrific play thus far in the CJ Group 1 tournament.

I'll be covering the Wilson-Ocean City game at Cherry Hill East tomorrow night, but I'm certainly going to go and watch the Group 1 game, plus I'll be thinking about what might be going on up at Cardinal McCarrick with Eustace. On top of that, I'll certainly be joining everyone in speculation about what might happen Tuesday, with Haddonfield-Heights, East-Gami and finally, the big one: Catholic-Spirit.

One interesting opinion has already been registered. Red Bank Catholic coach Joe Montano offered this prediction: "I expect Holy Spirit to be in the TOC. I think they'll beat Camden Catholic."

Now, keep in mind his team had just been stopped by Spirit in what was undoubtedly the best Spartans performance of the year, and there's no guarantee they play as well on Tuesday. But this is also no idle speculation. This is a very, very good coach who has been watching both CC and HS with a vested interest and analytical eye all year. Personally, I stuck with the Irish in my mandatory prediction that appears in Monday's paper, forecasting a 70-67 CC win.

In any case, those who believe that the Irish can just play their game and beat Spirit at its best are probably wrong. I give CC an edge, but it's going to take something extraordinary.

New C-P T20

2006-03-05T18:52:00.000-05:00

1. CCath
2. Wilson
3. Spirit
4. Gami
5. Boro
6. OC
7. Eustace
8. PVI
9. RV
10. CH East
11. AC
12. Washington Twp.
13. Cherokee
14. Timber Creek
15. Heights
16. Haddonfield
17. Sterling
18. Glassboro
19. Pleasantville
20. Gloucester

Almost: Salem, Wildwood Catholic, Mainland, West Tech, Williamstown, Cumberland, Pitman, Moorestown, Pennsauken, Collingswood, Kingsway, EHT, Sacred Heart

This week's changes, drastic as they may seem, were pretty self-explanatory. Once you get the the playoffs, old losses lose their weight and postseason victories take precedence, hence CH East's rebound over Timber Creek. You might also be able to tell that there are very definite ranges within which teams are working. If RV beats Trenton Central, for instance, they might move up to No. 6, but to get past Willingboro, they'd have to get to the state final. And the Group 2 teams are limited in how high they can go, unless the SJ champ beats Rumson in the state semis. Gloucester is holding a place for the last team standing in Group 1, be it the Lions, Salem or Bordentown, but all three of those teams have losses that will keep them from getting near the Top 10.

So that's all the analysis I feel like throwing out there. Honestly, I'm all about getting a good night's right tonight, and starting another week of basketball playoffs fresh as possible. We've got four straight days, then a day off, then two long weekend days, and then the TOC. Almost there.

I'm going to lay down a couple of pre-Monday tidbits real quick, and then I'm on an eight-hour vacation.

CCath 83, Mon. Donovan 42

2006-03-05T04:11:00.000-05:00

What I'm listening to: They Might Be Giants... Van Morrison... Bruce Springsteen... West Side Story... Johnny Cash... Tori Amos... Ben Folds... the Shins... Parliament... Young Gunz...

I decided to break today's action up into two posts because, 1) I went to two very different games, in two very different frames of mind; 2) the task seems less daunting that way; and, 3) an inordinately large part of my self esteem is tied to the number of posts that appear on the site(s).

I'm just kidding about the last one, sort of, but I'm serious in saying that the games felt very different. i'm not used to watching basketball at the early hour of 2 p.m. and I was a little sleepy at the beginning of the Spirit game. The action woke me right up, though. On the other hand, I walked into the Camden Catholic gym jazzed, having just finished the Spirit-RBC story, and the game put me right to sleep. I guess it was nice for the Irish that they put the game away early, and it allowed Rashidat to get her 2,000th point in front of the home crowd, but after the classic I'd seen earlier, it was like a cool down.

Which is not to say CC played badly or that MonDon didn't play hard, because that's not true at all. The Irish were very efficient, and the Griffins did all they could. I do wonder what Bishop Ahr must have been like, however, since I think Holy Cross would have given MonDon a nice game.

For the most part, the overall experience was a good one. I like Chris Palladino a lot, and have to resist taking the bait when folks badmouth that program, because I believe it's a good one. So many folks dump on CC for "recruiting" but its easy for those people to count up the players that have walked in those green doors and forget the players that have walked out. Now I'm not saying that better players haven't come through the door lately, but that team is pretty good and pretty deep. I remember one moment in the second half, when most of the MonDon starters were on the floor, and -- if I recall correctly -- the Irish had Gallagher, Sharpe, Plakis, Lane and Mahon out there. I thought to myself, "That's a CC team," meaning those are the kinds of players the program produces in vast quantities, like a factory. No matter what happened, the Irish always had and probably will always have them.

And that team was still galloping away from MonDon. Junaid, Crew and Matera were all chilling on the bench, and the Irish were still kicking Griffin ass and taking Griffin names. Send Matera back out there -- since she's as CC home-grown as they come -- and you still have a solid Top 10 team in SJ, which is more than most of the program's detractors can muster.

So that was one thing. But my visit "across the street" (as we say in the C-P newsroom) wasn't all flowers and cheer. One little thing has stuck in my mind, and reminded me why this job can be so infuriating.

I was milling around after the game talking to folks. My CC ties are well-known to a lot of people, starting with the fact that practically my whole family graduated from there (thought I didn't). And I've done a lot of stories about CC teams and athletes over the last several years, so there's a convivial pre-existing rapport, and I have maybe four or five casual two-minute conversations in between interviews with Chrissy, Ra and Jaz, who were all great.

Anyway, I'm walking through this loose crowd and I hear off to my side, something like "So the Reilly Factor didn't work out so good for you, huh?" referring to the pre-playoff feature on the three Reillys of Paul VI. I couldn't tell exactly who it was and I thought it best not to respond anyway, so I didn't. I guess some people thought that, by writing the story, I was pegging the Eagles to go a long way. People can read into things what they want, but it wasn't that way at all. I did think the Eagles had a chance to give Spirit a better game than other people did, but that doesn't even matter. And to some extent, I can understand a little school-rivalry bitterness with Paul VI, especially since two of the Reillys did leave CC.

But the thing that gets under my skin is the smallness.

Your team is undefeated and ranked No. 1, it just kicked the crap out of some poor squad to get into the sectional final. You have three of the best players in SJ and a bunch of others who would start for the rest of the T20, and a style of play that is both exciting and effective.

You're on top of the world, relatively. If ever there is a time for magnanimity, this is it. But it's not possible for some in CC land. You're worried about Paul VI's ranking, and the attention that Paul VI got last week. It's petty and small and it doesn't make sense, and I could more easily dismiss it if it weren't in line with other stuff I've seen "across the street" over the years. At least when it comes to its major sports teams, CC can be more than a little provincial.

In other words: There are other points of view out there, Irish. It would be nice if all the members of the CC family could enjoy their incredible and much-deserved recent success in a way that inspires the rest of us to be happy for them.

That's all I've got. I'll post the new T20 sometime Sunday.

Spirit 60, RBC 52

2006-03-05T02:20:00.000-05:00

What I'm listening to: the Dresden Dolls... Van Morrison... Europe ("The Final Countdown")... U2... James Taylor... the Beach Boys... Suzzanne Vega... Noreaga... Liz Phair...

Awesome game. So impressive, in fact, that I'm having trouble remembering most of the details. I have everything scribbled down, but I don't want to rehash it. That's the kind of game that I just want to leave there in my memory to age like wine. Jordan Sykes actually put it very eloquently when she said, "I don't want to ruin it with words." The AC Press' Mike McGarry offered a joking response to that comment a few minutes later, saying, "No Jordan, that's our job." And I'll have to wait for the morning to find out what sort of job I did there because writing the story for the paper was kind of blur too.

In any case, congratulations to the Spartans. Among the aftershocks of the game is the fact that Sykes has solidified her place as a first-team All-SJ player. She was borderline in my mind until today, but of course, that's why you wait until the playoffs. Most of the fretting duringt the regular season is for nothing because when it counts, the players make it easy. Another upshot of the game is that the South Jersey Non-Public A final becomes a kind of Courier-Post Cup championship game. Of course, the TOC could change everything, but the winner of Tuesday night's game will be No. 1, pending a victory in the state final.

I have to thank McGarry and the Asbury Park Press's Neil Schuman for making the game more enjoyable, if that's possible. The girls' hoops beat is peopled by about the nicest bunch of guys you'd want, starting with Neil and Gregg Lerner from the Star Ledger. McGarry does both boys and girls basketball for AC, but he's at almost all the big games, it seems. Plus, he knows the area inside and out, so when he said the goal at the far end of the Spirit gym has "the softest rim in South Jersey," I believe him. And he's probably right; it's way old, even though the rim at
the near end -- by the entrance -- is of a much newer style.

We were all sitting where i usually sit, behind the visiting team, and so we got an earful of the RBC fans. It was hilarious and annoying at the same time, but the funniest part I remember was late in the game, when Holy Spirit pulled the ball out and tried to kill some clock. The Casey fans were livid, and one guy screamed out, "Come on! That's not basketball!" As if killing the clock was a form of cheating. I guess he felt RBC was being robbed of its rightful chance to pull the miracle comeback that we all still half expected them to make.

Anyway, let's all shed a tear for the poor Caseys, who had to go home tonight and console themselves with all their past championships and the knowledge that the whole goddamn team will be back next year to kick everybody's ass.

OK, that's over. Let's move on.

CH East 60, AC 41

2006-03-04T01:42:00.000-05:00

For the second day in a row, I watched a great career end in frustration. Yesterday it was Erin Floyd and today, Tasha Cannon. For the sake of Jordan Sykes and Cheslea Conner, I hope the trend doesn't continue.

Everything was going to plan today until Cannon picked up her third foul six minutes in. The way East played, it would probably have been a great game. Vespe played great, Abiona and Tejada as well. As Laurie Carter said, "They made all the shots they needed to make."

Tejada has some attitude, which I really like. East coach Kim Keyack pointed out that a little edge is valuable in a points guard, and I think that's true. I saw a couple of moments during the game, way before it was decided, that Tejada was jawing with the AC guards, and she played a very emotional game, in the best possible sense. What I mean is that she used her anger contructively. For example, over his career Tiger Woods has been like twice as likely to make a birdie right after bogeying a hole. Tejada seemed like she was twice as likely to make a steal or can a three right after she got the ball stolen or was burned for a hoop. And she gave a little better than she took today.

Player by player, I wasn't unimpressed with Atlantic City today. In fact, I thought the 10 minutes the Vikings spent without Cannon in the first half were pretty close to the best I've seen that supporting class play. They just had a lot of trouble solving Abiona's interior D. The last time I covered AC, the win over Trenton Central, a reserve named Monique Garcia was a bolt from the blue in the season half, and she was even more today. She and Aliyah Montague each had a drive and a basket that was pretty awesome, and Garcia might have been the quickest non-Cannon player on the court today.

Anyway, it's sad to think I'll never get to see Tasha play for AC again, though I'm sure I'm far from alone in that sentiment. She seemed pretty upset, and I didn't get a chance to talk to her, which is kind of a shame for a couple reasons. The first is that she's a trip to talk to, and not in a bad way. Some kids are very honest and you have to protect them from what they say. But Cannon is honestly a nice girl, with a cool personality. I guess all those questions about having to carry her team on her back have taught her to take the high road without even thinking about it, even now that her team doesn't need the kid gloves so much anymore.

But there's another reason it would have been good to talk with her. At halftime, I got a visit from Shannon Gantt's cousin, who said that the Woodbury junior would be willing and even excited to play a game of one-on-one against Cannon, fulfilling the curiosity of the SJ basketball community. He said she'd planned on going to watch the Al Carino game anyway, and was looking forward to the possibility of the challenge. Now that Cannon's season is over, it's time to take up that drum beat again to try to get this thing done. I'm not certain how much actual legwork would have to be done, as far as getting the permission from all the right people, but I think it's a win-win for everybody. If publicized correctly -- and I can take care of that -- it certainly couldn't hurt attendance at one of the SJ Basketball Club's biggest fund-raising events.
Who knows, it could even start a little tradition.

In other action, congratulations to Haddonfield, Haddon Heights and Absegami for getting through to the sectional finals as well, and especially to Rancocas Valley and Bishop Eustace for pulling upsets. Chelsea Cole messed around and got a triple double tonight, lifting the Red Devils into a showdown with Trenton Central. Wouldn't it be awesome if there were two all-area publid state semis, in Group 3 and Group 4. Eustace stunned St. Rose Belmar tonight, so in conjuction with the demise of Sacred Heart, there goes the perennial big dogs in Group B. It may be Trenton Catholic's year, but BE is playing great basketball and Dom Reitano has himself on a short list for SJ Coach of the Year. I haven't thought hard about who else might be on that list, but he'll certainly get some consideration.

Before I sign off until tomorrow, I wanted to thank Andre Watson and especially Charlie Sprang for covering games tonight. At this time of the season, every game is worthy of special attention, and every one that gets it helps my peace of mind. Also a big thank you to Jen Rybacki for the music suggestion. I'll definitely be downloading some Matismayu in the near future.

Speaking of which, what I'm listening to: Coldplay... Otis Redding... Nellie McKay... Jethro Tull... the Magic Numbers... Aimee Mann... the Talking Heads... Barry Manilow (with the shuffle mode it had to happen sometime, the law of averages and all... the song was "I Made it Through the Rain"... at least it wasn't "Copacabana")... Jay Z...

23 area teams left alive...

2006-03-03T14:35:00.000-05:00

... with at least four more to fall tonight.

What I'm listening to: Bright Eyes... Bjork... Dar Williams... Liz Phair... Nina Nastasia... Paul Simon... Ben Folds... Fiona Apple... Mozart...

As I mentioned before, I'm going to Atlantic City-CH East. Tomorrow I'm probably going to the Holy Spirit game and then hitting a 7 p.m. game after that. And Sunday is a day of rest.

Today's schedule isn't quite as interesting to me as the previous round, on Wednesday, but the games will probably prove me wrong. It's the playoffs after all, and so everything is intrinsically exciting. The Group B games are the ones I'm most curious about, but Sacred Heart, BE and Wildwood Catholic are all on the road, so covering any of them was out of the question right off the bat. I'd really like to see some upsets there. If the Crusaders (Eustace and WWC) both win, they would meet right around the corner at BE in the semifinal Monday. And if that game were scheduled early enough (say 5 p.m. or before), I could even cover it, with time to get to the G3 final later on. Just throwing that out there.

A lot of eyes around the area have got to be on those two Group A quarterfinal games that were postponed from last night. Even more than the outcomes, I think Holy Spirit and Camden Catholic are hoping that whoever comes out of those games has a tough time. Not only do the Spartans and the Irish have home games, but now they also have an extra day of rest. It's all falling into place, I guess.

Switching gears, I've been sorting through the all-star info and trying to make decisions as the playoffs go along. It's kind of shame the way the timing works out, since I have to choose the teams before all the games are finished, but I'll be able to consider most of the sectional results.

We name a first team and a second team for all four public groups, and a first and second team for non-publics. Unlike many other organizations, we only put five players on each team. In fact, that's pretty much how we do it for most sports: the number of athletes that are allowed on the field at one time is the number of kids on each team. Notable exceptions are baseball and softball, where there are pitchers and utility players and such, as well as football, where we name 11 for offense and 11 for defense. We run photos of all the first-teamers in every group.

We also name a first and second team for All-South Jersey, but I've got a little more time on that because the time constraint is all about photos, and every first-team All-SJ player will necessarily be an all-group first teamer too. Right now, I've got a pool of about 15 players under serious all-SJ consideration, with maybe seven or eight still in the running for first-team status. There are only two first-team locks, and anyone who's been paying attention could probably name them with no difficulty whotsoever.

I think I've killed enough time here. I have to get home to let the dog out before heading over to East. See you there.

Wilson 51, Timber Creek 32

2006-03-03T03:41:00.000-05:00

There comes a moment in a long, hard push that a person just hits a wall, and can only stare at the screen and hope energy arrives from the space in between body and air. You know the things you need to get done at these moments, and you might even know what needs to get done first, but to begin -- to continue to work -- is not quite possible.

That's where I was a couple of hours ago, but luckily a walk around the deserted newsroom dislodged me, and now I'm back, bobbing in the stream of productivity again. The way it usually works, though, is that these little moments of paralysis grow in frequency and duration until whatever ordeal I'm dealing with has ended. It used to be finals week when I was back in college, and I would end up staying over nights in my office at the student newspaper. These days it's the end of every high school sports season.

I am going home after this, so forgive me if this post doesn't cover everything.

Had fun at Wilson today, especially sitting near some particularly passionate TC parents. In any gym, I almost always try to sit behind the scorer's table on the visiting team's side, about halfway up the bleachers. That tends to be were the fewest parents and other intensely partisan fans hang out. It's not that I don't enjoy the atmosphere the fans bring with them, it's just that if anybody's saying anything really mean, I'd rather not hear it. The TC folks were more vociferous than I expected, but they weren't probably any more delusional than anybody else. At times, it just seemed like they were because they were the closest ones to me.

I applaud TC for playing hard in what can be a very intimidating environment. Woodrow Wilson is really not the place you want a game to get out of hand, and it almost did in the second half. It's almost lucky it wasn't that close, or else emotions would really have flared. The Tigers were the better team, and did a great job limiting Erin Floyd, whose status as one of the area's best players is not hurt by today's result. Wilson has been hit by the "Washington Township bug," and it supposedly took Ossiera Monroe off the court for the last four days, but you could have fooled me. That girl is quick. One of the major factors in the game is that Floyd could not beat her off the dribble. If she had been able to, that drive was there for her all day long. As it was, the Chargers had to try to get her the ball with entry passes, and Wilson's team quickness broke a lot of those up.

Toward the end of the game, the Wilson guards started to hold the ball. TC was looking for a five-second call but couldn't get one because they couldn't stay within five feet of the Wilson girls for any length of time. I felt sorry for one TC girl, who slipped and made an already good Wilson crossover dribble look postitively And-One-Mix-Tape. The Wilson faithful almost brought the house down for that one.

When I left the gym, the Pitman boys team was on its way in for its Group 1 playoff game against LEAP Academy. The Panthers boys looked small and just a little bit frightened. As I said before, Wilson is kind of an intimidating place to play, and that was during broad daylight. Pitman-LEAP was scheduled to tip off at a very dark 7 p.m. I would personally been surprised if anything bad happeded to Pitman during its stay in Camden, but I'm not sure the Panthers shared my peace of mind.

A couple of little things about the rest of the games:

They were little disappointing. After the fireworks of Wednesday, including a couple of overtime games, Thursday had a lot of relative blowouts. I guess all the excitement was used up on the boys' side of things, as Holy Spirit went down in FOUR overtimes to St. Joe Metuchen. Four. That's a lot of intense basketball.

Florence lost its last game in its old gym, which has always been famous for being kept way too hot. The Flashes fell to the Scotties of Bordentown in a showdown of two of SJ's best nicknames. The thing that stuck out was the absence of Florence center Lauren Jacobsen from the box score. If Bordentown shut her out, congrats to the Scotties. If she's injured, it's a shame.

The last thing for now: I picked up the Inquirer today to see that Pete S. has ranked CC No. 1 ( of course), Holy Spirit No. 2 (not my choice, but okay), and Absegami and Wilson BOTH No. 3. Tied?! WTF? Unless something has changed, it's not a poll with points and stuff, so the tie isn't the result of some mathematical formula. We used to do Coaches' Polls here at the C-P, folks may remember, and even back then the writers would break all the ties. Since we don't recognize the Inky's rankings at all, and since the paper's SJ profile is so slight this season it's not really a concern to me. After the initial confusion, I just thought it was funny. Is it so important not to piss anybody off that simple decisions become impossible?

Anyway, I'll be at CH East for the AC game tomorrow afternoon, and the Saturday schedule is still up for debate. To be frank, any game scheduled for Saturday afternoon stands a very good chance of getting covered, but Willingboro and Spirit are the only taker so far.

What I'm listening to: Peter Gabriel... Radiohead... Simon and Garfunkel... Chopin... Pink Floyd... Tori Amos... Jay Z... Billy Joel... Ash...

36 area teams left alive...

2006-03-02T14:29:00.000-05:00

... with at least nine more seasons to end tonight. Just a quick post before I head to the Timber Creek-Wilson game.

Apologies for the lateness of last night's post, especially if anybody was hoping to read it before they went to bed. I had just enough time to get home in time to see the 11 p.m. showing of Project Runway, and then I was all out GB mode so I didn't get around to the blog until like 1:30 a.m.

One commenter reminded me that Eustace played yesterday as well. I guess they were disappointed I didn't mention the game, but we had a reporter there and I didn't know what else to say about it. This has got to be Gloucester Catholic's toughest season in almost anyone's memory, and with the ties between that program and Eustace, I don't think that situation was probably very comfortable for anybody. Eustace is playing great right now and GC is just in a bad place, but the Rams will be back. One worrisome thing, though, is that the Trico is going to three divisions next year, meaning GC's schedule strength is likely to take a hit that could hurt the program long-term.

A couple other things that I did not mention out of haste last night:

Congratulations to RV for its upset of South Brunswick, especially to Chelsea Cole for her 31-point performance. It's hard to know just how much of an upset that it, South Brunswick being an unknown quantity around here, but the Red Devils' next opponent, Hunterdon Central, is the sixth seed, so I guess seedings don't mean much up there in Central Jersey. It would be great to see RV get to a sectional final, and having seen Trenton Central play a couple times, I think they can take the hardware. Howell is the top seed, but I don't know anything about them.

I was glad to see that Casey Orlando scored two points for Heights because that means the rumors of a revised diagnosis must have been true. Hopefully the Garnets will be at full strength for West Tech.

Word is that Brazyl Richardson sat out for Collingswood due to illness, wich was a tough break for the Colls. West Tech has some serious post presence, and I understand they killed on the offensive boards. I was happy to see that Lauren Gregg redeemed herself after a lackluster couple of weeks howeve, going out on a 24-point game. I'll see the Panthers on the lacrosse field.

It looks like I'll be at AC-East on Friday, with hopefully a colleague going out to see West Tech-Heights. I''ll try to figure out Saturday's plan after tonight's results are final.

That's all I've got time for. See you on the court.

What I'm listening to: Joni Mitchell... West Side Story... Radiohead... Suzanne Vega... Ash...

Sterling 54, Glassboro 50, 2OT

2006-03-02T00:49:00.000-05:00

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.

Highland 46, Lower Cape May 38

2006-02-28T23:01:00.000-05:00

What I'm listening to: Pink Floyd... Tracy Chapman... Liz Phair... the Beatles... Johnny Cash... the Cars... the Talking Heads... Company (the Sondheim musical)... Jimi Hendrix...

C-P sports copy deskman Aaron Bracy requested that I rip his editing job so that he could see his name in lights, so even though I haven't read what he did to my game story yet, I'll oblige him: I apologize to all my readers for the piece of crap that appeared in print underneath my byline in the March 1 paper, and especially to the Lower Cape May and Highland folks who hoped for so much better. I feel compelled to mention that the story was a thing of beauty until a certain unnamed copy editor's ham-fisted ministrations transformed it into a gutless blob of inky pulp. It deserved better, and so did you.

It was so strange to see Jessica Leoni and Denise Hemerka play today, because I remember them both from two years ago, the last time I covered a lot of girls' basketball. They've both come such a long way. When Leoni was a sophomore and Hemerka a freshman, they were in the sometimes-uncomfortable position of being nice young players on a court full of superstars, which made them targets every time they touched the ball. But I can't help thinking that all the big games alongside those stars tempered the younger players, helping turn them into the fierce and confident ballers I watched tonight.

Here are some stat lines that didn't make it into the story that will be in tomorrow's paper: Hemerka had four points, three assists, seven boards and three steals. Jessica McDevitt had 12 points for the Tartans, adding five boards , an assist and a block. For Lower, Stephanie Agger had 16 points, four steals, five rebounds and two assists.

I was very happy to see Lower before the season ended, and Agger in particular. She's a terrific talent with one more season to get everything figured out. The Tigers are a very solid team, and will certainly improve. Unfortunately, there's another undersized, all-underclassman team in their own division: Ocean City. I think Agger can be a bigger factor than any one Red Raider, but OC have themselves figured out a little better. I'm going to have to try to get down to see an OC-LCM game next year, possibly hitting the boards for some pizza beforehand.

It was also good to meet Roy Wright for the first time. I know a lot of coaches I trust have the greatest respect for him and what he's getting done at Lower. A playoff berth is a great first step, and if Wright is in for the long haul there, he should do well.

I've also been impressed with what Dan McGettigan has been able to do with Highland this year. The Tartans have improved as the year has gone on, which is a sure sign of a good coaching job. After the Steele-Hemerka years and the one-year Zoll whirlwind, a lot of folks seemed to believe he was just along for the ride, and I'll admit I had my doubts about what would happen to the program. But though Highland isn't a Top 5 regular, a win over Pinelands could get the Tartans back in the T20. And it's hard to argue with their second-half results. They went 4-4 the first time through the Trico Royal and 6-2 the second time through.

I have little or no idea what Pinelands is about, but I'll be rooting for Highland on Thursday.

The other games went basically as expected tonight. Jessica Gerald bolstered her All-SJ case with another awesome game, and I think she's probably at least a second-teamer now, no matter what happens at Cumberland Thursday. That will be a real moment of truth for the Colts, who beat Kingsway 51-49 a month ago, when the Dragons weren't breathing nearly the fire they are now.

That's it for me tonight. I'll be at Sterling-Glassboro tomorrow night. Cant' wait. See you there.

Washington Twp. 54, Mainland 48

2006-02-27T22:25:00.000-05:00

Just a reminder, this post will also appear at Girls' Hoop Scoop, available through the official C-P website. I haven't yet decided whether to eventually post there exclusively. For now, the same material appears both places.

What I'm listening to: Paul Simon... Van Morrison... Jethro Tull... Coldplay... Ben Folds... Loudon Wainwright... Suzanne Vega... Jay-Z... Dar Williams...

I can imagine the consternation Karl Geisinger must have felt when he saw the brackets and realized he and his team had a first-round road trip to Washington Township. Karl has always been one of the most outspoken coaches in the area in saying the game is called differently -- and subsequently played differently -- in the western part of SJ than it is at the shore. After watching tonight's game, it's hard to know what to say. It's not as if Washington Township is a particularly un-physical team, but Lauren McPeak couldn't stay on the court even half the game and she still fouled out. I wouldn't have said the play was overly rough, and yet there were a total of 51 foul shots taken. It was not a pretty game by a long shot, and if pressed, I would say that Mainland played better basketball for most of the time, with the third quarter and the last minute being big exceptions.

If you're Karl or any other coach who perceives himself to be in that situation, it begs the question: Do you tell the kids to play conservative defense, knowing the game is going to be called a certain way? Or do you just tell them to play their style and let the chips fall where they may? If you take the first option, you risk taking your team out of its head right out of the gate, and if you take the second, all you'll walk out of the gym with is your principles and a long wait till next year.

Washington Township shot 33 foul shots today, including 18 in the fourth quarter, despite the fact that Mainland only fouled for possession in the last couple of minutes. The Mustangs shot 18 themselves, including eight in the fourth. Washington Township certainly deserves credit for taking advantage -- the Maids were 15-for-18 from the line in the fourth -- and the home team was clutch in the last minutes, with a couple of heads-up plays by Amanda "Kool-Aid" Jennings and Kristen Petell. I just wonder what might have happened in this game if McPeak could have stayed on the floor. Donna Costa is pushing hard for Jennings to be an All-SJ pick at the end of the year based partially on the fact that she's played and defended so many taller girls. She's certainly right about the fact that Jennings does a great job for her size, but it wasn't anyone's defense that took McPeak out of the game tonight.

I was once again impressed with the Wert twins, who have to mentioned in any best-freshman conversation, along with Frazier from Spirit, Price-Perry from Lindenwold and a bunch of other girls I can't think of right now. They get tougher on the defensive end all day, and the three foul shots Dana hit in the second quarter were Township's only points. As a tandem, them made zero field goals, but went 11-for-12 from the line, grabbed three big boards, made six steals and added an assist. Washington Township is set at guard for the next three years, so maybe the young talent will funnel back to Gloucester Catholic.

I was sad to see the careers of Carlee Briglia and Sarah Cohen end. Both of those players are extremely tough, and a lot of fun to watch. Mainland will be back next year, though, especially with its whole frontcourt returning. Wooding and Bradway were both very solid for the 'Stangs tonight.

I got back to the office to find that Sterling survived the Pleasantville test, and I'll see the Knights on Wednesday at Glassboro. Laura Sweeney won her final battle with Elise Graham and Cherokee advanced to meet Gami. A Catanzariti-less Cinnaminson escaped a challenge from Point Boro. I know she hasn't been in the box scores for the last couple of week, but I don't know why. Anyone who wants to shed light on that can email me or comment. Haddon Township earned a shot at Heights. When the teams played a couple of weeks ago, Casey Orlando was a big factor. We'll see if somebody else steps up for the Garnets.

I'll be at LCM-Highland tomorrow. I haven't seen either of these teams play yet, so I figured I'd take this final shot at both of them. Stephanie Agger gets a lot of respect from the coaches in the Cape, and Jessica Leoni has had a nice year for the Tartans, so it should be interesting.

See you there.

Strength of Schedule rankings

2006-02-27T15:12:00.000-05:00

What I'm listening to: the Kinks... W.A. Mozart... 50 Cent... Randy Newman... Ash... James Brown...

Back in the fall, I cooked up a mathematical system for the calculation of schedule strength. With a little tweaking, it works for basketball too. I've copied and pasted the following explanation from the boys' soccer blog, changing a few words to make it relevant to this basketball season:

I couldn't sleep last night, and while I was lying there staring at the ceiling, I devised a relatively simple formula for calculating strength of schedule for SJ high school basketball, or really for any other sport in this area. Then once I came up with that, I really couldn't sleep until I'd done the math on all 88 major-conference teams in South Jersey.

I blame this illness of mine on my father. He has it too.

Anyway, here's the formula. Remember that it only measures the strength of a team's schedule (S.O.S), with no regard for wins, losses and ties. So it's not a ranking of teams so much as of the test each team has faced over the course of the season.

Here goes:

Working with the current Top 20, past Top 20s, the current list of bubble teams, the Gannett state Top 20 and the USA Today Top 25, point values are assigned to each opponent a particular team has faced.
5 -- Teams ranked from 1-5 in the C-P are worth
4 -- Teams ranked 6-10
3 -- 11-15
2 -- 16-20
1 -- "Almost" teams from the last two weeks, as well as squads that used to be ranked in the T20 but aren't anymore.

For instance, a game against Absegami is worth 5 points because the Braves are ranked in the Top 5. A game against Eastern is worth 1 because the Vikings used to be ranked.

For out-of-area opponents:
7 points -- USA Today Top 25
6 points -- USA Today Regional Top 10
5 points -- Gannett state ranking 1-10
4 points -- Gannett state ranking 11-20
3 points -- Any noteworthy out-of-area team, i.e. recent state champion, state title contender or major private school porgram
1 point -- Any out-of-area team with a winning record

For example, Willingboro gets 7 points for playing Shabazz (nationally ranked). Eustace gets 3 points for playing St. John Vianney (noteworthy out-of-area team). Gami gets 6 points for playing Bishop McNamara (ranked in the East region), and Camden Catholic gets 5 points for playing Bloomfield Tech. The out-of-area criteria for boys' soccer was way simpler, but I felt I needed to articulate it further in girls' hoops because there are so many more of those showcase event giving, and therefore a lot more games involving out-of-area heavyweights.

I hope that was clear enough.

Anyway, here are the top 25 teams on S.O.S. and their point totals:

1. Wilson 79
2. CCath 55
3. Gami 53
T4. Paul VI 52
T4. Camden 52
6. Willingboro 50
T7. Eustace 45
T7. Spirit 45
T7. Wash Twp. 45
T7. AC 45
11. Cherokee 44
T12. Eastern 42
T12. Mainland 42
14. Penn Tech 41
15. Lenape 40
T16. CH East 39
T16. EHT 39
T16. Pennsauken 39
19. Oakcrest 38
20. Moorestown 35
21. Camden County Tech 34
22. Lower Cape May 33
23. Shawnee 32
T24. Haddonfield 31
T24. Middle 31
T24. RV
T24. Seneca

Other T20 teams:

T28. Ocean City 30
T32. Pleasantville 27
T35. Wildwood Cath. 25
T40. Timber Creek 23
T51. Sterling 18
T68. Heights 14
T73. Glassboro 13

This is little more than an exercise, of course, and it doesn't really mean anything. A couple of trends that were at work here. Obviously, being in the Olympic National is money as far as SOS. I'm sure Camden would prefer not to be in the top 5 in this ranking, since it's not so much fun for the Panthers. Wilson's schedule looks better and better, more than 20 points clear of second place. There wasn't any one division that was abjectly weak, but

Anyway, take from the list what you like. As I said, it means nothing, but it's a fun thing to think about, at least for me. I started thinking about a way to use a similiar model to actually rank teams, but that's dangerous ground. It could be done, but I'm not sure anybody would like the result any more than I like the BCS in college football, which is not at all.

New C-P T20

2006-02-26T02:42:00.000-05:00

What I'm listening to: Regina Spektor... TMBG... Renaissance... Dar Williams... the Pogues... Mama Mia... Gatan Project...

1. CCath
2. Wilson
3. Spirit
4. Gami
5. Boro
6. AC
7. OC
8. Eustace
9. PVI
10. Wash Twp.
11. RV
12. Cherokee
13. TCreek
14. CH East
15. Pleasantville
16. Heights
17. Glassboro
18. Sterling
19. Wildwood Cath.
20. Wildwood

Almost: Sacred Heart, Moorestown, Williamstown, Cumberland, Kingsway, Gloucester, Haddonfield, Collingswood, Pennsauken, Salem, Highland

I had a real problem in the Top 5 for the first time in about a month, because of Gami's loss to Spirit. Knowing that Rosario and James were out, there's obviously room to assume that they might have been able to make a difference. But I've always said that the team that plays is the team that plays, and I've dropped other teams for losing at less than full strength, so I didn't feel like I could just give the Braves a pass for convenience's sake.

I've had it really easy with the top part of the list for quite a while, and it came back on my this time, bot just with Gami but also with Cherry Hill East. I'm sure it hasn't escaped the Cougars' notice that they're ranked behind a team in Washington Township which they beat twice, and also behind another team, Cherokee, which is a member of a division which East won outright. But something went horribly wrong for that team in a 20+ point loss at Timber Creek. Maybe it's some kind of Player of the Week curse. It wasn't more than a few hours after I talked to Kim Keyack to make Vianca Tejada the POW that the Cougars laid that egg. I wasn't worried about the pick because, since we have to choose the player by a certain time, I considered the "week" to run from Thursday to Wednesday. But still, it was quite a surprise.

I wondered for a while what to do with the end of the rankings as well. I decided that the winner of the Trico championship game would be in no matter what, and had Williamstown won, I would have put Mainland back in too. Wildwood Catholic effectively replaced Sacred Heart by virtue of a win over the Lions on the road. I realize that the division was actually not up for grabs, that SH already had it locked away, but that was a big win for the Crusaders, who seem to be headed in the right direction going into the playoffs. The near upset over Paul VI the very next day only solidified those thoughts in my head. Wildwood went in at No. 20, based on a six-game win streak that includes victories over Gloucester, Pitman and Mainland, but it could just as easily have been any one of four or five other teams.

I've worked up strength-of-schedule rankings for the whole area, and I'll be posting about them sometime tomorrow (Sunday), along with an explanation of the formula. There were some interesting revelations.

Kingsway 56, Moorestown 49

2006-02-24T22:43:00.000-05:00

Invariably, I write these blog posts while connected ears-first to my iPod, so here's a new regular feature that I'm sure will serve to embarass me. I'm calling it "What I'm listening to." I'll try to be honest, even if Barry Manilow happens to come up.

In any case, listen along if you like...

What I'm listening to: Ben Folds (Rockin' the Suburbs)... DMX... Van Morrison... Pink Floyd... James Brown...

I enjoyed seeing my former editor and boss, Diane Fuhrer, at the game tonight. Her daughter is a freshman for the Quakers, though she's currently injured. She started with the same talk that all basketball parents spout in some form -- you know: "this player should be starting instead of that player," and "why weren't you here last night?" and so on and so forth -- but she kept catching herself. It was funny because she was on the other end of lots of crazy phone calls from parents when she was the C-P sports editor.

It was an enjoyable game to watch. Not too many unforced turnovers, some good ball movement, solid defense and few first-half fouls. Both teams were dead tired and maybe that helped everybody keep it under control. Jessica Gerald was at another level, and she's gotten a lot of "best player faced" votes on the all-star ballots we've been getting back from area coaches. I think she's probably had the best year in the Trico this season, and that puts her right in the middle of All-SJ consideration. I'll have to think about that some more, though.

Both Kingsway have interesting first-round home games in the playoffs, and if they get through, I could see either of them upsetting the high seeds they'll face next. Kingsway gets Hammonton, with the winner going to Cumberland. Moorestown hosts Deptford, with the victor going down to Ocean City. As I've mentioned before, the possible duel between Gerald and Hammonton's Katie Piekielski will be worth the rpice of admission, but I was very impressed with how Kingsway's supporting cast has come along. Moorestown seemed the wearier team today, even though they were at home. If that's true, and they get back to full strength for Deptford, the Quakers will be a clear favorite in that game. Then they'll certainly have a chance against OC, especially if the Red Raiders suffer the same brand of shooting woes they faced against Trenton Central last weekend.

It's kind of a shame that the basketball squad doesn't get more lacrosse players out for the team, but I guess the laxers wouldn't be a top-three national program year after year if those athletes weren't training hard for that sport through at least one of the other two seasons. I'm really looking forward to watching Xan Weitzel, Jess Davis, Brooke Cantwell, Erika Page and the rest of the Quakes take on top-ranked Mt. Hebron of Maryland at home this spring. Kara Burnham and Julie McGrory and the rest of the Moorestown hoops team does a great job for coach Scott Atkinson, but at a lot of schools, basketball has its pick of the student body's best female athletes. The only lax name I recognized today was Virginia Weber.

When I got back to the office tonight, I got a call from Haddon Heights coach Kenny Hamburger, who reported that junior center Casey Orlando tore some ankle ligaments agains Collingswod and will be out the rest of the season. I know the Garnets aren't the deepest team around, but now we'll find out just how shallow they are. And now Sam Carter really needs to come to play, because that's a lot of boards and a decent number of points gone from the lineup. Unlike the extremely outspoken Heights parents, Kenny has downplayed his team all year, and tonight was no different. "This levels the playing field," he said. I didn't disagree with him, adding that the SJ Group 2 playing field was already pretty flat. But I wouldn't count Heights out yet. I still believe they have the best single player, at least as far as upside, in the sectional in Meredith Kennedy. There aren't many teams the Garnets can't beat if she's hot.

I also saw that Paul VI escaped Wildwood Catholic on a buzzer-beating putback by Mo Reilly. Had WWC held on there, that would have been two ranked upsets in two days. I think the Crusaders will be in the T20 come Monday despite the last-second loss anyway.

My amoeba-like weekend schedule has shifted again, and now I'm "off" tomorrow (Saturday). I say "off" because I still have to do basically all the work for a feature that will serve as the playoff preview, as well as figure out what the heck I'm going to do for my Monday column. On Sunday, I'm going backto visit one of my old beats, boys swimming, to cover the public state finals. Charlie Sprang is off in Indiana watching his son swim in the Big Ten championships, so we all need to pitch in. The playoffs kick off the next day and right now the plan is for me to cover Mainland-Washington Township, with Lower Cape May-Highland on tap for Tuesday. Wednesday I'll likely be at Glassboro to see the Bulldogs take on the Pleasantville-Sterling winner, and Thursday's frontrunner is Timber Creek-Wilson, since it's a rematch of last year's final. Those certainly won't be the only GB games the C-P wll cover, but I'm not sure where other folks are going to be.

Anyway, check back tomorrow and Sunday for the new T20 and something special I'm still working on. Those who followed the boys' soccer season might be able to guess what it is, but the only hint I'll give is that it's one of the more interesting products of my obsessive personality.

Camden Catholic 63, Absegami 58

2006-02-23T02:35:00.000-05:00

My dad gave me a call a couple of days ago and said, "If I only see one girls' basketball game this year, which one should I go to?"

There was only one answer to that question, and the CC-Gami game fulfilled all expectations. My dad drove down with me, and it was great to have him, but I'm afraid he's probably now got an unrealistic impression of what girls' basketball is all about. Maybe I'll bring him to the Tournament of Champions. Otherwise, his next GB experience is likely to be a disappoinment.

That's not to say that the game was perfect, but the two teams play a version of the game that is recognizable to anyone as good basketball, and they both have girls who can make plays that would be impressive at any level. The atmosphere was great, which certainly helped, and since my dad wasn't even sure how to pronounce Absegami, he was happy to see the Irish come back and win.

To be honest, though, I find myself kind of ambivalent about the outcome. I though Gami played a great game, and was a little sad to see them lose. The Braves deserved better, especially playing without Rosario. They made no excuses, and Jasmine Crew's 21 second-half points was certainly the decisive force in the game, but I was incredibly impressed with Mostafa, Booker and especially Connie James, who made a ton of foul shots and played great defense on a sprained ankle.

Catholic did not play well in the first half. In fact, I thought the first was a "nervoud quarter' for both teams. Since they were at home, it was not a shock the Gami shook off the nerves first, but I'm not sure CC has scored as few as four points in any quarter all season, and the Irish looked just that out-of-sync. Crew was taking bad shots, Matera was invisible, Ra was having trouble finishing. The only thing that was working was the rebounding, thanks in large part to Allison Lane. It's hard to know how many of those boards Rosario would have grabbed, but Lane certainly uses her body as well as enybody in South Jersey. She reminds me of Kelsey McGowan of Sterling in that way: not too tall, but a great rebounder.

Mostafa took everybody's breath away several times, an I'm more anxious than ever to see the player she might be able to turn into. Her reverse layup in the second quarter served notice that she's not just tall, she didn't pick up a foul until the second half despite playing great defense, and she was efficient from the foul line. In fact, I daresay she was the best center on the court for much of the game.

But in the second half, Crew started playing under control, taking good shots, and everything loosened up. As tight as the Irish were in the first half, that's how loose they were by the end of the game. I mean a 26-point fourth quarter? That's kind of ridiculous. CC scored all of 15 points in the first half and 48 points in the second. I thought coming in that they had to turn up the pace a little bit on Gami, and they definitely did as the game wore on.

I know that folks are going to get on Alysha Taylor for having an imperfect game, but I really don't think she played badly. She's a little out of position as a point guard, sure, but Gami didn't give the game away, the Irish took it. In talking to Mostafa after the game, I feel like the Braves understand that they played well, and I really hope that's true.

The injury situation with Roasario and James shakes out this way, according to coach Greg Goodwin: both have sprained ankles, Rosario's sustained on Monday against Christ the King. Both will be shut down now until the first game of the playoffs, against either Cherokee or Pennsauken next Wednesday, so niether figures to be in the lineup for Saturday's CAL championship game against Holy Spirit. Goodwin said he learned his lesson a couple years ago, when his team was banged up late in the season and they played through it, only to be upset by Toms River North in the sJ Group 4 final. "Kara Ayers was in a cast the next day," he said, which is something I did not know, but it certainly explains some things. So Gami is playing it safe the rest of the way. They may go into the playoffs with an inexplicable five losses if the Spartans can pull the upset at Stockton, but health going into "the second season" is the highest priority. In related news, the AC Press reported that Spirit center Teena Marsh could be back in the lineup soon, which is great news. If she plays against Gami, the absence of Rosario will be that much more important.

Tomorrow (Thursday) is my wife's 28th birthday, so I'll be out of the loop for an evening. Hopefully the world does not end. Friday I'll be at Kingsway-Moorestown. The Quakers are one of a few teams I am hell-bent on seeing before this is all over. I have a strategy for getting to the others next week.

A humble and hopeful suggestion

2006-02-22T11:07:00.000-05:00

As mentioned at the end of the previous post, this idea belonged first to Williamstown coach and first-rate basketball fan Karen Dilmore, but I've decided to throw whatever meager weight I have behind it:

Wouldn't it be fun to see AC's Tasha Cannon and Woodbury's sensational junior Shannon Gantt play one-on-one? Maybe on the day of the Al Carino All-Star Game? I'd certainly pay for the chance. Tasha could wear the awesome mohawk she was rocking on Sunday at Ventnor, and it would give Gantt some much-deserved spotlight. In some ways, I wonder what her career would be like if she had transferred to a Catholic school, maybe GC or Paul VI, but on the other hand, I applaud her sticking with her program. In any case, she might be the only female player I know of in SJ who could stay with Tasha in that particular setting.

So I'm starting the drum beat now. I have a feeling both players would be game, as long as the opportunity presented itself conveniently. The Carino game seems the most likely possibility since Cannan will probably be there anyway and it's relatively close to Gantt's Woodbury home. Plus the season will be over, nothing else will be on the line, a large section of the community will be there anyway and maybe it brings a couple more people in the door for an event that supports the basketball club. I can't imagine either of those girls backing down from a friendly challenge.

So here it is: Game to 15 by ones, make-it-take-it, for the unofficial one-on-one championship of South Jersey. If they want, I'll even come up with a trophy of some sort. Hopefully the idea gathers some momentum. I think it's cool.

Williamstown 48, Cumberland 43

2006-02-22T10:18:00.000-05:00

This game definitely exceeded expectations as far as intensity and entertainment value. The way Williamstown had been struggling to score the last few weeks, Rachael Matreale's out-of-the-blue 25-point explosion was a welcome shock. At least to me.

Everybody seemed to have a lot of fun last night, especially when the Braves boys team showed up in the fourth quarter. Cumberland made its runs beyond Pariphany Pender and Keyona Grant, but Williamstown handled things just a tiny bit better. I was happy to see them earn a share of the Royal title because, for the vast majority of the season, they had to deal with the pressure of being the favorite and the frontrunner. Everybody brings their best game to play the favorite.

One trivial question that's been tugging at me: why does Williamstown wear blue shorts with home white jerseys? Is it a statement of some kind, or did the budget only allow for one set of shorts? If it's the budget, I certainly think they made the right choice, as blue jerseys with white shorts on the road wouldn't be a great look.

And since I got on the subject of gyms the other day, I might as well mention that Williamstown has a nice one. I especially enjoy the arena-style scoreboard above the court. The place gets pretty full for the SJ Group 4 and 2 title games, which are held there every year, though I'm a little surprised they've kept on with that now that Williamstown has moved into Group 4. The Braves could concievably reach the sectional final on their home floor. The Group 3/1 site for the last few years has been Cherry Hill East, so they couldn't just switch the two since East is even more likely than Williamstown to be in the Group 4 sectional final. They used to have the 3/1 doubleheader all the way down at Woodstown, and while I liked the atmosphere down there, I wasn't crazy about the drive. Cherry hill East is nice and close, and if they ever move the other game out of Williamstown, I hope it goes someplace like, say, Camden Catholic. There's nothing like a 45-second drive to the office when you're in a tight deadline jam. Of course, the biggest problem venue is the Non-Public sectional finals, which are always all the way out at Lakewood in Ocean County. Not only is it far, but there's really no fast way to get there.

But enough of my whining.

I talking with folks after the game, I was really impressed with Pender. As her team's impromptu spokeswoman in defeat, she was a delightful interview: thoughtful, sincere, original and respectful of the victors without seeming condescending. It's often a tough trick for a high school kid to pull off, especially after a game as tough as last night's, and she did it with aplomb. It sort of makes me hope Cumberland has a long enough tournament run for me to cover them again, because now I know I'll get decent Parsiphany quotes every time. A quick glance at the bracket would have the Colts likely hosting Wilson in the sectional semis, and that would also explain the presence of coach Al Dyer in the gym last night. I'm sure that will be a good game, but it might be too much orange for me to handle. We'll see.

As long as I'm thinking about Williamstown, I might as well pass along a terrific suggestion made by Braves coach Karen Dilmore. But on second thought, the idea is good enough that it deserves a post of its own...

New C-P T20

2006-02-19T15:54:00.000-05:00

1. CC
2. Gami
3. Wilson
4. Spirit
5. Boro
6. AC
7. RV
8. OC
9. Eustace
10. PVI
11. East
12. Cumberland
13. Wash. Twp.
14. Cherokee
15. SHeart
16. Pleasantville
17. Heights
18. Sterling
19. TCreek
20. Moorestown

Almost: Collingswood, Cinnaminson, EHT, Glassboro, Gloucester, Haddonfield, Mainland, Pennsauken, Wildwood, WW Cath, Williamstown

I'm in Ventnor and it's almost halftime of the OC-Trenton Central game right now, the Raiders down by seven but in the game. The wireless signal here is kind of spotty, so I need to keep this short.

As you can see, the top 15 did not change one iota. I agonized over whether to drop Timber Creek or Moorestown for losing games to superior teams, but eventually decided against it. Sterling jumped in for beating Colls soundly on the road. Glassboro was probably the next team in based on an impressive three-loss record, but the Bulldogs still haven't beaten a ranked team so I demurred there.

I just got done watching Eustace lose to Vianney by 18, but I have to say the Crusaders showed themselves to be a much-improved team from the beginning of the season. I was particularly impressed with Claybrook. A point guard has to take her share of the blame when a team commits nearly 30 turnovers, but that was a collective effort. The real difference in the game was the fact that SJV went 9-for-13 from three. That's an owwie every single time, especially since BE's interior D was playing very tough.

After that, Willingboro survived a game with Bishop Kearney, a team from NY. For the life of me, I can't figure out how that team stayed with the Chimeras, but they did. The Boro was too physical in the end, though.

That's it for now. I'll try to post tomorrow, if I get a chance.

Sterling 38, Colls 28

2006-02-19T02:18:00.000-05:00

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 in favor of the official one, but I'll let you all know when it stops being current.

So the Colonial drama is at an end, at least for the regular season.

Some of the Haddon Heights contingent was on hand at Collingswood, having already taken care of business against Gateway. I think a group of them walked into the gym about 50 feet behind me and waved to me, but it was one of those moments where you think, "Are they waving to me or to someone else?" And I'm afraid I might have come off badly there. To be honest, that happens to me a lot. I never think anyone is waving to me. Why would they be? I wish I were the kind of person who is always expecting to be recognized and waved to, but I'm afraid I never will be. In any case, I apologize for seeming stand-offish.

And congratulations to Heights for securing a piece of the conference title. I expect that the Garnets will earn it all on Tuesday, but stranger things have happened. Though it would be crazy for West Deptford to throw the Colonial back into play, I can't help hoping it doesn't. Unless I'm not counting right, two Heights losses (to WD and Colls) next week could leave four teams with four losses each. What kind of league championship would it be if they split it four ways. I can tell you it would be a happy day at the old championship jacket-selling store.

As far as thrills go, this afternoon was a little bit of a disappointment. Collingswood was flat all afternoon, and Sterling was certainly on its game better. The Knights didn't light up the scoreboard, but Cassi Bryant's defense on Lauren Gregg set a very serious tone. The game was over after three quarters.

I wish the best of luck to Sterling coach Kate McDonald, whose baby girl is due on Monday. My sister very recently had a baby. I'm sure her whole family is excited, and the SJ basketball family has something to gain here too. As she told me today, she may be giving birth to the future of her program. Who knows? Hopefully Saturday won't be the last I see of her this season, as her team has a chance to go deep into SJ Group 2. In fact, I'm not sure there's a team that's clearly playing better than Sterling right now, but Pleasantville-Glassboro-Haddonfield is a very tough road to the sectional final.

I have to cut this short if I stand any chance of catching Eustace-Vianney down at Ventnor, which is my plan. I have to get to work on a bunch of other things tomorrow as well, including a pre-playoff feature story on the best centers around. I really want to get a bunch of them together for a photo, but I'm not sure how possible that it. We'll see.

Delran 42, West Tech 41

2006-02-18T02:43:00.000-05:00

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.

West Tech might be the best story of the year. Dyette Dillard is really building something at that school, which might turn out to be South Jersey's answer to Bloomfield Tech. Especially with the finalncial crisis that the school district of Willingboro is facing these days, I think a lot of students are going to be looking hard at Westampton Tech as an option, not just for basketball reasons.

The future may belong to these Panthers, but the day did not.

Delran did an excellent job attacking. The aggressiveness of Ally Rodolico and Caitlyn Simmons did a lot to neutralize the physical advantages that West Tech had, and the Panthers' cold shooting did the rest of the job.

Big Joe from Collingswood was in the house, scouting West Tech. He was rightly concerned about the game the Colls might get, should they advance past Buena. He characterized them as "Lindenwold with a couple of 6-footers" and I think that's apt. The guards really attack the basket, and aggression goes a long way in the girls game. I didn't get a chance to talk with Joe afterwards, so I'm not sure what the final analysis was, but I'm sure he'll deliver a comprehensive report to Nancy O'Neill. Dyette and I joked that it was good her team didn't really show Joe everything they had, but I know from talking to him at halftime that he was suitably impressed, and he's certainly seen enough basketball to know what a team is capable of, no matter what it shows over a given 32 minutes.

The end of the game was a little disconcerting to me, with regard to both teams. Delran tried to give the game away with turnovers, and while I felt bad for one girl in particular, they need to take care of the basketball in those situations. West Tech's cold shooting made certain they didn't take advantage of those mistakes, but what really confised me was the defenses they were in late. Down a point in the last two minutes, they were in a sagging box-and-one zone with Rodolico isolated. Now Rodolico was having a great game, but if I'm Delran I'll take that trade every time. They threw the ball away anyway, but I know a lot of teams that have seen that defense and never given the ball back to West Tech.

One strange thing: Delran was absolutely perfect from the foul line, 11-for-11, until the last minute, when Simmons missed the first end of a one-and-one. How ironic would it have been if the Bears would have lost the game at the line after nailing them all night long. I'll give Simmons a pass this time because she was money in a game I saw earlier in the season, against Cinnaminson, and I'm glad it didn't come back to bite the Bears.

As I mentioned I was going to do, I accompanied one of our interns to the Hammonton-Pennsauken game earlier in the day. There's some insurance-related reason that interns can't go anywhere by themselves, but it's a good way for us to make sure they're getting as much as possible out of their time with us, I guess. We decided to do the story on Elise Graham, so I was hoping for a good game out of her. After a slow start she came alive for 17 points, which was nice.

In my time at the C-P, I've covered tons of Pennauken events, but this is actually the first time I've ever been in the Pennsauken gymnasium. I was digging it. If you've never been, I'd describe it this way: imagine a warehouse, or better yet, a textile factory. Take out all the workers and machinery, replace them with some bleachers, a hardwood floor and some basketball goals and voila. Very industrial. Very cool. I can imagine a night game there -- with some strobe-lit, techno-enhanced introductions -- would be very intimidating to a visiting team. And just think of the nicknames you could come up with for it: the Factory, the Warehouse of Pain, the Sweatshop.

It was laid back afternoon at the old factory. That is, except if your name was Katie Piekielksi. Her shot wasn't on, but she played a great, hard-nosed game nonetheless. She made some great passes, grabbed some huge boards, and spent a lot -- and I do mean a lot -- of time on the floor. She even did a somersault once after getting a rebound that she hadno business getting.

It was good to talk to her after the game, if only to know that she wasn't hurt. She and the Blue Devils have a game against Kingsway coming up in the first round of the upcoming SJ G3 playoffs, and I'd bet that her duel with Jessica Gerald will be a bargain at twice the price. I haven't figured out the coverage strategy for the opening round of the playoffs yet, but I certainly wouldn't mind seeing that one.

I'm going to try to get down to the Timber Creek-Washington Township game early tomorrow afternoon, and do my Monday Sicth Man column on the Chargers, who lost teammate Brittany Washington to a car accident a year ago today (meaning Friday). Then I'll head to Sterling Collingswood to see if the Panthers can keep pace in the Colonial. If they win, I'll cover their game with Heights on Thursday. If not, I'll find some other game to see. Sunday I'm going down to Ventnor, though I realized after posting yesterday that the Eustace-Mainland game had been shuffled out of existence. I'm not certain which game I'm going to actually cover, but there are a ton of events in the area that day across all sports, so we're not sending a photographer down. That means I don't have to decide until I get down there. I may well end up covering Eustace-Vianney in the same time slot.

Lastly, I got a call from Greg Goodwin confirming the big game with CC on Wednesday night at 6. It should be a great atmosphere down at Gami, which happens to be another of SJ's interesting gyms. It's really big, and kind of dark and shadowey, which adds to the drama. I've never seen it even close to full, but the wrestling folks tell me that when it is, it really rocks. We'll find out, because I've spoken to a bunch of people who are planning on going down to watch. Hopefully, though, this is only Round 1, with the second round to come in the TOC.

Heights 45, Haddon Twp. 31

2006-02-17T03:08:00.000-05:00

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.

Eastern, Winslow and Wednesday

2006-02-15T20:30:00.000-05:00

First, some important news.

This blog has gotten the call. This means one of two things. Either it's about to be co-opted by Big Brother, subdued and homogonized, or (and I hope this is true) it's about to add a new, more complex shade to the C-P spectrum. In any case, the editors-that-be have requested that I start posting at a new site underneath the paper's umbrella.

The address: www.courierpostonline.com/blogs/mccann.html

I will continue to post here for a while, or at least copy and paste the posts at both sites so that no one will be left behind. Hopefully, the trasition will go smoothly. Eventually this blog -- and theoretically the Unofficial C-P Boys Soccer site as well -- will go dormant, and everything will appear at the new site. If things get too corporate over there, of course, I'll just switch back, but I'm willing to hope that it won't come to that.

In other news, many people I've talked to in person have mentioned difficulty placing comments on the site. I think I've figured this out, and one no longer has to be a blogger member to post a comment. Anonymous comments are now possible. Though I'd certainly prefer folks sign their names to their thoughts, I can certainly understand not wanting to go through the hassle of setting up a username and remembering a password. Hopefully, this improvement will work (just in time to be made obselete by the move to the new site).

In actual hoops news, I went to cover the Eastern-Winslow game yesterday. Though I don't have the energy to write a whole diatribe about this matchup, I will say that I expect both of these programs to improve by at least four or five wins next year.

Eastern looked good once the Vikings started hitting shots, and I really like Marissa DiMarco's intensity. All those girls know how to win. They just have to translate it to the basketball court. Winslow was raw, but there is some definitely talent there. I enjoyed my talk with Coach Gyurics after tha game, as she's one of the area's true straight-shooters, and look forward to their return to the upper echelon of the area.

She did bring up one very good point in saying that the Olympic stands to look a lot different a year from now. Graduations are going to blunt the conference's peaks and raise the valleys. The Cherry Hill Easts and Timber Creeks will miss their stars, while teams like Eastern bring everybody back. Off the top of my head, I'd say the Vikings, Cherokee, Washington Township, CC, Wilson, BE and Paul VI will almost certainly appear in next year's Preseason T20, with East, Pennsauken, and Shawnee perhaps showing up too.

I'll be at Haddon Township to see the Hawks play Heights tomorrow night. The Garnets are clinging to that half-game lead in the Colonial. No matter what they do, as long as Collingswood can beat Sterling on Saturday, that Heights-at-Colls game next Thursday will be for some or all of the league championship. If Haddonfield wins out in Colonial play, we could have a three-way tie at the top.

SJ girls bracketology

2006-02-14T04:02:00.000-05:00

The state tournament sectional brackets have now been out for more than four days, and it's time to post some thoughts. Of course, there's no arguing with the seedings since they're based on pre-set criteria. It is interesting to wonder about how the different tournaments might play out, and the terrific games they might produce.

So:

SJ G4: The top seed and defending champion is Absegami, and the Braves are certainly also the team to beat. The best first-round game is probably Mainland-Washington Township, with the winner going to Cherry Hill East. The Mustangs can be a terrific team, and they love to run. Township uses pressure when they get behind, so if Mainland can get a lead, the game could turn into a track meet. Pennsauken is a real wildcard, up against Cherokee in another terrific first-round game. If Cherokee gets through, the Mostafa-Sweeney matchup could be fun to watch. I'm seeing Gami-AC III in the final, but not before a classic AC-CH East semi. Tasha Cannon could make her POY case there.

SJ G3: The top seed is Cumberland, the defending champion and team to beat is fourth-seeded Wilson. The first round features a rematch of last year's final, with Timber Creek visiting Wilson. It's kind of a tough break for the Chargers, because I think they could be the second-best team in the sectional if given the chance to prove it. Moorestown-Deptford and Kingsway-Hammonton are both intriguing first-round games. Cumberland is a wild card, kind of untested. Should Wilson survive TC's visit, it will be interesting to see all the orange on the court down in Colt country for the semis. Ocean City is a strong contender to get to the final, and young. We could see an OC-Wilson sectional final the next two years in a row.

SJ G2: Heights is the top seed and probably the team to beat, and Sterling is the defending champ. The best first-round game is Sterling-Pleasantville, with the Greyhounds being an unknown quantity to most people. That winner gets Glassboro, another relatively mysterious team. At full strength, the Bulldogs are probably the section's toughest squad, but how strong will they be? who knows. Glassboro was dealt a hard road to the final, through Sterling-Pvile and probably Haddonfield. Collingswood drew a more favorable path, facing Buena, West Tech and then probably Heights, a team they have already beaten once on the road, and which they will end up facing twice in like a week and a half. The first time is in Collingswood, and it could carry the Colonial in its balance. The winner of that semi will go into the final as the favorite, but not by much. Any one of eight teams, including Haddon Township, Cinnaminson and Sterling, could get hot and win this thing.

SJ G1: Pitman gets the top seed, Salem is the defending champ and possibly the team to beat. Literally all seven teams in this section have designs on at least the final, and I'd say six of them have a legitimate shot at the title, including seventh-seeded Lindenwold. Gloucester has been playing the best lately, or maybe it's Wildwood. I don't know. The best first-round game is Palmyra at Gloucester, with Lailah Pratt going up against Chelsea Conner. Last year, the team with the best big girl (Salem and Shanel Turner) took the crown, and this year it's Gloucester and Conner. A lot of the potential matchups in SJ G1 have precedence in the Trico Classic season, and third meetings are usually the craziest. So this bracket should be fun.

SJ N-P A: Camden Catholic is the top seed and the team to beat. The defending champion, St. John Vianney, is no longer defending, having bitten off more schedule than it could chew and missing the playoffs. I don't know when was the last time a TOC finalist missed the playoffs the very next year, and it's certainly never happened to a program of SJV's stature. That stunner left the door ajar for some rare good CC luck. Both Holy Spirit AND the scariest team in the section, Red Bank Catholic, are on the other side of the bracket from the Irish, who need beat only Holy Cross and most likely Monsignor Donovan, both at home. The best first-round game is Paul VI-Holy Spirit, and the winner will play RBC in the best semifinal matchup. Assuming Spirit gets through, that RBC game at Spirit would be an instant classic. In any case, the final at Lakewood is a can't-miss game.

SJ N-P B: Trenton Catholic is the top seed and the team to beat. Sacred Heart is the defending state champion and No. 5 seed. The best first-round game is probably Gloucester Catholic-Bishop Eustace. This is no longer a sister-on-sister coaching matchup, but there are still ties between the programs and plenty of emotion to go around. The winner has a tough assignment at St. Rose.Sacred Heart has to go on the road in the quarters to Mater Dei, and if the Lions get throgh that, the real test is at TCA. If Sacred Heart gets to the final, they can definitely win, but the road is incredibly difficult. I have no idea about Cardinal McCarrick other than a kickass record, so that makes the winner of the Wildwood Catholic-St. Joe matchup a wild card. Jay Reed's Wildcats have come on very strong lately, as evidenced by their close loss to Timber Creek, and Wildwood Catholic has a lot of ability. Obviously, Trenton Catholic is the class of this bracket, but anything can happen.

That's all I've got for now. As far as coverage for this week goes, I'm trying to get around to some teams I haven't seen before it's too late, so I'll be covering Eastern at Winslow Tuesday night. Eastern has been hot lately -- ask EHT and Washington Township -- and Winslow has been vary tough to beat at home -- ask Shawnee -- so this should be a pretty good game. See you there.

Response to commenters

2006-02-13T22:24:00.000-05:00

My response got too long for the comment box, so I just pasted it here:

The rankings are based on wins AND losses, plus consistency. For example, if Pennsauken goes and beats Wilson, Pennsauken is going to jump up and Wilson is going to fall a little bit. But if, say, Overbrook beats Cumberland, I can't ignore Overbook's losses and just stick them in at No. 12. The rankings are a living thing, very subjective but as systematic as possible. In the end, the only ranking that matters to me is No. 1 and the only list that matters is the last one. I pray for clarity on that issue, and everything else is just fun. Everybody thinks this stuff is easy, and it certainly is simpler if you only care about one team.

And two polls kind of defeats the purpose of ranking teams to begin with, taking the fun out of it. It's now done in football for a bunch of reasons, including the fact that teams play only 10 or 11 games, and can't possibly schedule enough non-conference games to let us make a fair comparison. Another big reason is that you need at least 20 kids just to field a football team, whereas seven does the job in basketball. Small schools have competed just fine in the past. Sterling finished at No. 1 and the very next year, Wildwood -- the smallest public school in SJ -- finished No. 2. Now, what happens if we went to two sets of rankings and, say, Haddonfield lost to Shabazz in the TOC final. We wouldn't get to recognize them as the best team in SJ, but only the best small-school team.

The Colonial is in a downturn this year. The best teams right now -- in my view, Heights and Collingswood -- have one senior starter between them, and a lot of the squads that are normally there have fallen out. If you recall, five Colonial teams -- Haddonfield, Heights, Sterling, Collingswood and Haddon Township -- were in the Preseason Top 20, and every one of them fell out at different times for very real reasons. Pitman was in and fell out. Glassboro did the same. I can't keep somebody ranked just for the sake of school-size diversity. If I did, the rankings we publish in the paper would be a sham and I'd have to come on here and post "the real T20" every week.

If the coaches of the smaller schools believe they're getting disrespected in the rankings, they have not told me. I hear it mostly from the parents, and god bless them, but they're whacked. In the pyramid of respected opinions, kids and coaches are at the top and parents are at the bottom because their passions so often get the best of them.

AC 51, Trenton Central 41

2006-02-12T22:42:00.000-05:00

Tasha Cannon is quite awesome. The rest of that team is beginning to rise to the occasion.

Talking to Greg Goodwin and Karl Geisinger during the game, nobody really wants to see AC in the Group 4 playoffs and it's all about Tasha. Goodwin said Gami has played her 10 times and won every one, but and he's terrified of 11 and I don't blame him at all. Trenton, a pretty athletic team, had no answer for Cannon. The Player of the Year discussion is one for another day, but she's in it without a doubt. Of course, a lot depends on what AC does in the upcoming playoffs.

This was a good, good win for AC, maybe its best of the year. And the supporting cast hit some big shots in the second half, none bigger than Monique Garcia's three at the end of the third quarter. Usually Montague is a clear second-best player for AC, but this time the entire team stepped forward.

To be honest, I went down there to see Absegam play Camden Catholic, and thank god I went as early as I did. When I arrived, Karl had just been informed that the irish weren't coming. Apparently, it was Monsignor Martin's call, and I can't say it was the wrong one. Certainly I was disappointed, as was Gami, Catholic, the event organizers, the fans that were in the gym yesterday and those who found out in time not to come. But Monsignor Martin has a different set of objectives and it's hard to say a decision in the interest of the kids' safety. I had my doubts, but driving home at around 8 p.m. -- about an hour before CC's prospective return trip -- it started getting slick out there. I do feel bad for Karl and his people at Mainland, who lost thousands of dollars on Saturday, and probably more today. They work very hard and put on a first-class event every year. I hope they've exhausted their bad luck for another 10 years.

I went to the second part of that funeral way early in the morning yesterday, and actually less than 30 minutes of sleep. So I was falling asleep at the wheel on the way down, until stopping off for a caffeine IV at the old Farley Rest Stop on the expressway, and it left me a little jittery and talkative, not quite myself. Then I was sure that Ac was actually playing Trenton Catholic, not Trenton Central, and when somebody asked be about Central I told them what I knew about Catholic, going on and on about what a talent Jasmyra Saunders was. When I saw it said Central in the program, and Saunders wasn't listed, I kept insisting that the program was wrong. I was in a strange mood. Of course, I was wrong, as was the schedule we had in the paper, which led me astray in the first place. I have no idea how it happened.

Anyway, I caught the very end of the Lenape-Sacred Heart game, and wondered why Lynn Brennan wasn't there. I asked a bunch of people during the game, and all of them were wondering but nobody knew. I intended to get to the bottom of it but I got distracted and missed the Indians and their folks before they left.

Another tidbit that a bounch of people were buzzing about was Holy Spirit's loss of Teena Marsh, who has apparently suffered, or aggravated, a knee injury. She won't be back this season, apparently, which is a tough break for the Spartans. It also puts the spotlight back on freshmen Jessie Frazier, one of the very best I've seen in the Class of '09. I'm assuming she'll be back in the starting lineup now.

Well, that's pretty much all I remember right now. I'm going to try to post tomorrow on some of the topics I mentioned at the end a couple of days ago: the brackets, the bill in the state legislature, etc. We'll see if I get around to it.

New C-P T20

2006-02-12T13:33:00.000-05:00

1. Catholic
2. Gami
3. Wilson
4. Spirit
5. Boro
6. AC
7. RV
8. OC
9. Eustace
10. PVI
11. CH East
12. Cumberland
13. Wash. Twp.
14. Cherokee
15. Sacred Heart
16. Collingswood
17. Pleasantville
18. Timber Creek
19. Heights
20. Moorestown

Almost: Egg Harbor Township, Haddonfield, Mainland, Sterling, Wildwood, Gloucester, Williamstown, Highland, Cinnaminson, Wildwood Catholic, Pitman, Williamstown

Eastern upset a couple of teams this week, including Washington Township, but two wins over Cherokee kept the Maids from fallling too far. It takes more than a mild upset to drop a team below an opponent they bested twice. If they had split or even if they Township had won their only meeting, Washington Township would be ranked between 15 and 20. EHT had no such safety net, and the Eagles were a bit closer to the edge, so they fell out this week, as did Mainland with a loss to Wildwood on its home floor and Haddonfield with the 20-point loss to the Colls. All three of those teams are a big win away from getting back in, and certainly if Haddonfield starts playing like they did at the beginning of the season it won't take long.

Cherry Hill East moves behind Paul VI, as I indicated they would earlier in the week. After seeing Abiona and Vespe play, I think it's unfortunate that they were not available on Tuesday, becuase it would have been a great game.

Timber Creek, Heights and Moorestown make it in this week. The Chargers have been solid since a stunning loss to Clearview, and an overtime defeat to Collingswood at the Cougar Classic has been looking better and better. This was a top 10 team to start the season, and TC has now won eight straight.

Heights... well, after all the whining the Heights folks were doing, I almost decided to leave them out one more week just to screw with them, but thought better of it. The rankings maybe aren't the place for jokes. A couple years ago in boys' soccer, I was getting so many out-of-touch critics that I decided to put my alma mater, St. Joseph's Prep, in the "Top 21" rankings at No. 2 just for the purposes of the blog. People went nuts. I could do the same thing here for the same reason, but the joke wouldn't be as funny because SJP is an all-boys school. Or maybe it would be even funnier... Don't worry, I won't.

I've been looking to get Moorestown into the T20 for a while, but the Quakers' lopsided loss to Heights really hindered them. This is a team with a little tarnish on the older fenders, a couple losses, but they were the last team to beat Eastern before the Vikings started ripping off upsets.

I'll be posting about the game I ended up covering yesterday, AC-Trenton Central, in a little while, hopefully tonight. Sorry for the delay. I really have no excuse or anything, I just felt like doing other stuff.

Gami-Catholic breakdown

2006-02-11T04:30:00.000-05:00

Know this: I love snow.

It's fun to play it, it makes everything pretty, it brings people together, cancels school at a time of the year when kids most desperately need an unexpected day off, and it reminds us all how nice it is to live at a time when we can just turn the heat up and watch the show.

But snow is breaking my mind today, and the feeling is all too familiar.

This season, Gami-Catholic at the Shootout is the game everyone has pointed to all year, but a few years ago it was Willingboro-Christ the King at Ventnor. CTK had been ranked No. 1, then lost to Marlboro without its point guard, then got it's point back from injury, returning to the level of performance that took it to No. 1 in the first place, settling into the national top 5. Boro had beaten every oppenent -- many of them high-quality teams -- by like 30, and was ranked around No. 15. Nobody knew just how good the Chimeras were, even Crystal, Lateisha and the rest of the team. The CTK game was supposed to tell us, but snow wiped that one off the calendar, and it was never made up. Boro never got the test that it needed going into the playoffs, then got famously dressed down in a ferocious Shabazz first half. A tested team would have known how to respond there, but the Chimeras flailed in the open ocean, and never really made it a game as Shabazz-leaning Dunn Center went nuts.

I'm afraid the Irish are playing the role of Willingboro, and snow is about to rob them of their much-needed pre-playoff punch in the face. Maybe Bloomfield Tech was enough, but things have been going way too well for comfort ever since. CC is probably less prone to overconfidence than that Boro group because the program has never won the big game -- not even a SJ championship -- but it's still worrisome.

If they play, I will be there, even if it's at 5. But I'm fretting that they won't play. And if these reports of the flu sweeping through the Catholic ranks are true, then I don't know what to think. If Gami wins, the Braves will go back to No. 1, there's no question. It would just be a shame to award the C-P Cup based on such a game. If they both win state titles, they could easily meet again, probably as the 2-3 semi in the TOC, but that's looking way too far down the line.

OK. Let's assume they play the game and everyone is healthy. Big assumption, of course, but position by position:
PG edge goes to CC. Gami hasn't ever had a true point in recent memory. Basimah Thompson had the physical capability to be a pure point, but the four 30-footers she took every game DQed her. Plus Crew knows Gami, she almost beat them with Spirit last year.
SG edge goes very slightly to CC. Matera is a more reliable shooter than anyone Gami has. Taylor and James are terrific players, but I'd take a true point and a true shooter over two combo guards in most situations.
SF edge goes to Gami, but I think this might be the most important matchup on the floor. Can Gallagher, with her all-around athletic ability, keep Booker from playing the decisive scoring role that she did against Wilson and AC? The battle of the boards will be won at this position too.
PF edge goes to Gami, but this advantage could easily be negated if Catholic turns the pace up. Rosario is bigger and stronger than Lane, but a running game diminishes her game. Lane is much more effective than Krissy on the run.
C edge goes to CC, but not by that much. I'm really, really interested to see the Ra-Mostafa matchup. Beyond the obvious changing-of-the-guard theme, both players are used to defenses collapsing on them to negate an ever-present size advantage. I expect Booker and Rosario to look to help on Junaid a little bit, but I'm sort of hoping the coaches let the two biggest bigs sort it out by themselves a few times.
One nostalgic aside: When I was covering Temple, the Owls had an enigmatic PF named Lamont Barnes who wasn't worth a bag of sand during the Atlantic 10 regular season because he would always bring the ball down to waist-level where the outsized guard or small forward assigned to help could strip him or otherwise harass. But when Temple got to the NCAA Tournament and played teams like Cincinnati, which had a PF (named Kenyon Martin) who was supposed to be able to be able to handle himself straight up, Barnes lit it up like a lottery pick.
Now, I'm not saying Junaid or Mostafa has the same kind of obvious flaw that Lamont Barnes inexplicably had, but I've never seen either one play straight up against another center or her caliber.
Anyway, moving on.
The Bench edge goes slightly to CC. The Irish have able backups for everyone but Ra, and after the Gami-Wilson game we know that the Braves are susceptible to foul trouble. Gami's reserves are able, especially Ty Abdilla, who I've seen play well in a couple of tough spots, but Plakis, Sharpe, Mahon, Dombrowski, etc., are probably the best bench in SJ. That all changes if -- as the rumors suggest -- three CC starters are out with the flu. Any position where a CC reserve is starting is automatically an edge for Gami, despite the quality of the Irish bench.
Intanglibles probably favor Gami. The Braves have been in more big games so far, they're not protecting an undefeated season, plus they've got a 15 or 20-minute bus ride and CC has a 90-minute one.
Coaching is a wash. I have the utmost confidence in both of those staffs. Goodwin and Palladino have well over 600 career wins between them, and they have both showed a remarkable ability to adjust strategy midgame this year. I've always thought that one sign of a weak coach is an inability to ditch a solid game plan that should work, but doesn't. Both coaches know their teams extremely well, and I'd be shocked if they hadn't done all possible homework.
Like many games, I think this one will be decided by tempo. Which team can impose its will. CC will try to push it, and Gami will try to keep it half-court. The thing that makes the game so intriguing is the fact that Gami can run a little bit and Catholic has perhaps the best half-court player in SJ in Junaid.

Hopefully, all this mindless analysis won't be for nothing. All we need is for the game to come off as planned, with everyone healthy and at full strength, and I'll happily drive my still-muddy car through the snowstorm for four hours or more.

Funny, it didn't seem like too much to ask a few days ago, but now...

CH East 44, Pennsauken 35

2006-02-10T02:57:00.000-05:00

Tons of stuff to get to, so I'll dispense with the game quickly. This was actually my first time seeing Ivy Abiona play a whole game, and I have to say I'm with GW: she's got a ton of potential. My feelings were lukewarm until the fourth quarter, when she just decided to take over for a stretch. Then she broke the Pennsauken press with the dribble andthat was it. I'm an Abiona fan. Just seeing a strong, 6-2 girl make those moves with her head up, looking to make a play, was worth the price of admission.

As I suspected, there was apparently some internal CH East turmoil behind the absence of Abiona and Britney Vespe from the Paul VI thrashing. I'm so glad I didn't cover that game, because I kind of wanted to. I'm still not certain what the exact problems were, but Coach Keyack assured me that all is solved now, and the Cougars are moving forward. It took them a while to translate that assurance to the court, but there were certainly flashes of the team they could be. Coach Keyack and I talked about the possibility of some kind of post-cutoff letdown, with the division sewn up and the SJ Group 4 No. 2 seed secure. It's understandable, but certainly not ideal.

A couple of years ago, the Rancocas Valley boys soccer team suddenly caught fire in the second half of the season and went all the way to a state title, and both the players and the coaches attributed it to an unmatched level of discipline that they adopted midstream. The called it "military disciple" and they took it all the way, with old school pre-game calisthenics, even lining their bags up in numerical order. But they all said it wouldn't have worked without the first half of the season's laxity and frivolity. The lesson here being that a team can't expect to play on the edge every day, and there's an art to getting by on 85 percent. The Cougars practiced that art today, but on the heels of the shellacking at the hands of Paul VI, I'm not sure it was exactly what the East coaches were looking for.

Pennsauken was very game today, even though Elise Graham was not only slightly overmatched by Abiona but hurting bad from a tailbone injury. Coach Ciociola said this was her first game back after missing 10, and I didn't realize how much discomfort she was in until I saw her after the game, and she could barely get around. The girls that really impressed, though, was Ashley Thompson. I could see that she's a little raw, but she was the kind of raw that made me think she was a lot rawer not too long ago. Though she clearly showed that she could shoot, steal, handle, rebound, pass and defend, it was her decision-making that got me. For a raw player, she made very, very few mistakes today. I'm not saying she played a perfect game, but the Indians showed a lot of patience in the halfcourt-set, and the times that she pushed the pace were the right times. It didn't make for the insane, breakneck intensity that accompanies many HS girls' games, and the addition of East's general malaise made it feel like a JV game for the first half, but I was impressed nonetheless.

OK, so much for dispensing with the game quickly. It's like 3 a.m., and I have just enough energy left to apologize again for not being able to cover the Willingboro-RV game Friday night. I'm going to do my best to resist the urge to call the office for the score around 8:30 or so. I'm going to try to post sometime tomorrow afternoon, touching on the following topics: the release of the brackets (always an exciting time), the remaining undecided division races, snow, and the bill that passed the NJ assembly regarding NJSIAA ticket pricing. I'll also try to break down the upcoming Gami-Catholic matchup, including what I see as the keys to the game and the players that might make the difference.

But for now, I'm out.

Wednesday is still for wrestling

2006-02-09T01:36:00.000-05:00

I spent a bone-numbing day in the office today, taking wrestling score after wrestling score. Actually, other folks carried most of the load until about 9 p.m., when I thought they were going to drown. Then I started picking up the phone.

Wrestling is a weird sport. My dad wrestled in his days at Woodrow Wilson, so I grew up with a respect for the sport, but as an adult I look at it kind of like it's a dinosaur, especially because it makes no room for girls. I'm not certain most girls would be interested in wrestling -- though there are several girls competing in the area -- but there is definite value in that sort of visceral, one-on-one kind of competition.

My idea is to replace wrestling with martial arts, whether it be taekwondo or judo or kendo or whetaver. It would preserve the lessons and values that wrestling espouses, while leaving the door open wider for girls. Plus, the spiritual, life-management lessons inherent in martial arts would be a benefit beyond the mat, and these athletes enjoyment of the sport could continue after high school, in any area of the world.

Obviously, it wouldn't be all that great for girls' basketball because hoops pretty much has a monopoly on the wintertime freelance team-sport athletes in a given school. In the fall, girls pick soccer or field hockey, and the spring offers softball and lacrosse or track. In the winter, swimming gets its share, but most swimmers are swimmers only all year round and aren't in circulation the rest of the school year. The addition of martial arts wouldn't touch the type of players that start for top 20 teams, but the sport's depth would be affected.

Of course, any discussion of such a thing is pie in the sky. Nothing like it is in the works or probably even in the minds of the NJSIAA. Even if a buzz were to start today, nothing would happen for years and years. So wrestling, a slowly dying sport, is here to ruin my Wednesday nights for the forseeable future.

Tomorrow, I'll be at Cherry Hill East, and the first thing I'll do it try to figure out why Abiona and Vespe didn't play against Paul VI. I'm not sure how much difference they would have made, and as far as the rankings go it doesn't matter: the team that plays is the team that plays. I was scheduled to cover Willingboro-RV II on Friday, but a death in my wife's family will prevent that pleasure. The relative who passed away was just 44 years old, a good guy and a good Democrat; he was a ward leader in the Fishtown section of Philly, a throwback political foot soldier. All that is undoubtedly contributing to my strange mood the last couple of days. Hopefully, the funeral will do what it's supposed to do and provide a place to put those feelings.

Anyway, I'll see you at the gym.

CWood 41, Haddons 24

2006-02-07T23:18:00.000-05:00

Thanks very much to Collingswood announcer and all-around astute observer Geoff Filinuk, who gave me a coupon for a free car wash when I walked in the gym this evening. Yes, my car is still covered in Mt. Holly mud. I've been waiting for a rainstorm to wash it away but now I don't have to. Now if I could only get around to cleaning out all the junk on this inside of my car...

Anyway, this was my first chance to see Collingswood since catching the last few minutes of a lopsided loss to Hammonton back at the Boardwalk Classic during the holidays. And I guess I didn't realize until the opening introductions how young these girls are. The Panthers started two juniors and three sophomores today, and they did pretty much everything but shoot well.

The defense was the most impressive thing, though. Even without Katie Feeley (who has some serious quick feet when healthy) the Colls' zone held Haddonfield to a season-low point total, nine fewer than the previous low, 33 in the now-infamous game at Heights. I added up the Dawgs' scores from the rest of the year and it came out to an average of 55.8 points a game coming into tonight. So when Collingswood had a nine-point lead going into the fourth quarter, the Panthers' D made it seem more like a 20-point edge.

Lauren Gregg had a stellar game today, and I can't wait to see more out of her. Brazyl Richardson seemed very raw to me at first, but late in the game she showed dome fadeaway touch that impressed. Still, I'd prefer to see a post player finish at the glass than fall backwards, but that takes real confidence. I liked the Crites sisters' games a lot, especially for 10th graders. Barring something catastrophic, Heights will certainly enter next season as the Colonial favorite with five three-year-starting seniors, but I can't wait to see this team develop too. That could turn into a monster rivalry over the next season and a third, with both Colonial and South Jersey Group 2 titles hanging in the balance. If I'm not mistaken, the teams could meet in the sectional semis at Heights this time around, but I'm not going to get into any of that until the brackets are actually released.

I felt bad for Haddonfield because they played hard, Annie Maloney and Laura Gurelian in particular. The Dawgs got some offense going in little spurts, but seeing as they never scored more than eight in any one quarter, those spurts didn't last very long. They managed just eight field goals for the game. It's very, very tough to win that way. On defense, I thought they did a decent job, given the fact that Collingswood knew very well it had an advantage down low. I'd have to go back and check, but I don't think many of the Colls' points were in the paint, especially if you don't count second-chance points. Rebounding, of course, was a real factor in the Colls' favor to about a 3-to-2 ratio. It was wider in the first half, and then Haddonfield started throwing its bodies around some more. Gurelian, again, was a big help. She's not the biggest player on the court by far, and there's no earthly reason she should come up with the number of boards she does, but both times I've seen Haddonfield play a whole game, there she is, hauling in the rebounds. Well done.

I was sitting right by the scorer's table behind the Collingswood bench, and in hindsight I think it was a good thing because the Haddonfield faithful were pretty hard on the officials. One of them -- Annette, I think her name is -- has been following me around lately. She was at Cinnaminson-Holy Cross Friday, then Haddon Township-Sterling the next afternoon, and now Haddonfield-Collingswood. There are officials that I don't see twice in a whole season, and I've run into this one three days straight. She's been solid every time I've watched her, so she's joined the group of officials that I'm happy to see walk in the gym. The other official, Carol, has always been one of those too, but the Haddonfield folks were all over her.

I was actually starting to get a little embarrassed for them, especially because they were calling her out by name. It was kind of an ugly thing. And I was embarrassed on behalf of the players on the floor, too, because their behavior has always seemed cool, the picture of the high road. Everyone else associated with the team has been otherwise. I'm not sure where this persecution complex came from, but when you hail from a school district like Haddonfield, it is not becoming in the least. At the aforementioned Dawgs-Garnets game, I didn't think the refs had a very good night and said so in my post, thus opening up a can o' worms. That was not the case tonight. I thought the officials had a fine night this time. I can remember one play, where Vicki Roddy took a charge and as soon as the call was made my inner voice said, "Good call." And the Haddons bench and bleachers went completely berserk.

Oh well. I've got an evening in the office planned for tomorrow, and then I'll be at Pennsauken-Cherry Hill East watching two teams that got their asses handed to them tonight. I've really been enjoying all the folks from Heights clamoring about the rankings -- I even got a four-page latter about it via "certified mail" today, whatever that means -- but I wonder why so many of them are fixated on Paul VI as being undeserving. Having seen both teams play, I'm not certain the Eagles wouldn't win that game by 20. One person did a position-by-position comparison and only gave PVI one edge in the starting five, which made me actually laugh out loud.

Look. I'm not pushing any team. I want to see everybody's best game every time I go out there because it's more fun that way. And I don't know everything or see everything, and I make plenty of mistakes. But the keyhole logic that people can convince themselves with is constantly hilarious to me. In any case, I just wanted to tell everybody to keep up the good work because it's been a lot of fun.

The week ahead

2006-02-07T00:12:00.000-05:00

The cutoff day has passed, and the annual endgame begins. Teams that scraped their way into the playoffs are breathing a sigh of relief and waiting with excitement for the brackets to come out (probably Thursday). Squads that missed the playoffs will just play out the string, while coaches look hard for opportunties to reward seniors and prepare the kids who will be back next year. The teams with championship hopes are looking for chemistry and seasoning, and there are even a few division titles out there to be won.

I'll be at Haddonfield-Collingswood Tuesday night, and as I mentioned in some other recent post, this game will have serious Colonial implications. If you're Haddon Heights, I'm guessing you're rooting for Haddonfield because this is one of the leagues that does not break ties. Collingswood is the only team that currently owns the hypothetical, mythical, what-if tiebreaker of head-to-head. I personally wish every league broke ties, but currently only the Olympic Conference and the Cape-Atlantic League do so.

In any case, the Colonial potentially has about two or three more twists before we'll be able to figure things out for sure, and any one of those teams would certainly cede the league if it meant victory in South Jersey Group 2.

On Thursday I'll be at Pennsauken-Cherry Hill East. The Olympic American is already decided in East's favor, but I feel like I've been neglecting the Cougars, who just keep on winning like it's going out of style. One of the least talked-about heroics of the season have probably been those of the CHE backcourt. Abiona gets a lot of credit, and Ivy certainly is gifted and able, but Tejada lights it up in practically every big game and gets considerably less credit. I'm hoping those East guards have a good day so we can maybe fix that. And if Pennsauken comes up with the upset, then we can talk about Elise Graham and the girls as a potential spoilerin SJ Group 4.

On Friday, I'll be at RV for the Willingboro game. I saw the first installment of this season series back on opening night when Crews was awesome and Cole was not herself. Now it's Crews that may be hurt -- I have not heard about the status of her ankle -- and the Red Devils have been rolling ever since a lackluster loss to Trenton Catholic back at the Cougar Classic. I don't know what the Trenton Central folks will be doing that night, but I've seen them at a bunch of games so far this year and I wouldn't be shocked to see them in the gym for this one, since RV is a certain contender in Central Jersey Group 4.

The next day I'll be down at Mainland, of course, covering The Big Game. I love that event, so I'll probably go and watch most of the games just for the hell of it, and fill up the notebook for the next week. So if anybody's inclined to come over and yell at me about the rankings or anything else, feel free to do it. That is until 7 p.m., because Gami-Catholic is going to be a tough fit, deadline-wise. In fact, I think I'm going to have to scrounge up a phone line so I can send my story right from the gym. With an early deadline Saturday night, there may not even have time to get to a Starbucks.

New C-P T20

2006-02-05T04:29:00.000-05:00

With the exception of the last two places, this edition of the rankings was by far the simplest version of the exercise yet, at least in this sport (back when I was covering tennis and swimming, there would be entire weeks without a single change). So:

1. CCath
2. Gami
3. Wilson
4. Spirit
5. Boro
6. ACity
7. RV
8. CH East
9. OCity
10. Eustace
11. PVI
12. Wash. Twp.
13. Cumberland
14. Cherokee
15. SHeart
16. Mainland
17. EHT
18. Haddonfield
19. Collingswood
20. Pleasantville

Almost: Heights, Williamstown, Glassboro, Cinnaminson, Moorestown, Timber Creek, Pleasantville, Wildwood, WW Cath., Highland, Salem, Gloucester, Sterling.

I think 10 is the most "almost" teams I've ever had, but I can honestly say I tried on every single one of those squads in the last two places, and the two that ended up there felt the best.

What the heck happened to Williamstown? is my question after seeing the scores of the last two days roll in. They get upset by a Pitman team that started hot but has cooled off considerably in the last few weeks, and then they lose decisively to EHT. Both of those teams are solid, with solid records, so the Braves didn't fall far below the surface, but combined with Glassboro's getting thumped at Wildwood, it was not a banner week for the Trico, and as a result, Cumberland is carrying that league's flag alone right now.

Now I know that some folks are wondering why Heights isn't there, and somebody even called the office to talk about it, so I'll explain it one more time. Heights and Haddonfield split. Yes, the Heights win was more recent, but just like the Dawgs, the Garnets took their home game, which says to me that the two teams are even. The thing that separates them is the fact that Haddonfield has stepped outside the conference and beaten good teams, namely No. 8 Cherry Hill East and No. 15 Sacred Heart. Heights' only T20 win was Haddonfield, and the Garnets also lost to that same Dawg team as welll as No. 16 Mainland and new No. 19 Collingswood. Importantly, the Colls loss was AT HOME, and has yet to be avenged. I can understand the argument that Heights people are making because it's very easy to get fixated on Haddonfield and the most recent game. But take a step back and look at all the available information and the decision isn't even all that difficult.

Over the past few weeks, I've gome to appreciated how truly blessed the girls' game in this area had been to have courageous elite teams, all of which play each other during the regular season like the members of some mythical division. Wilson, for instance, is now 3-3 against teams in the SJ Top 6 and 7-3 against the Top 11, not to mention the out-of-area studs they play. The biggest treat left, of course, in next Saturday's CC-Gami showdown at Mainland. I've often thought it would be really cool to have a SJ Coaches' Tournament for hoops, like they do in soccer, but the top girls teams take care of things on their own pretty well.

Sterling thrills, WIlson rolls

2006-02-05T01:42:00.000-05:00

My car is now covered in mud, but I consider myself lucky. In a blind hurry, I took one of the parking places along the grass at Rancocas Valley today, and while I was inside watching Wilson take care of Willingboro, the rain softened the ground enough that I almost couldn't back out. After five minutes of back and forth, spinning those wheels, I finally escaped. I apologize heartily to whomever has to take care of that grass, but I'm pretty sure I wasn't going to end up the only one tearing the turf today.

That wasn't even the first or last thing that went other than planned today.

My day started going south when I showed up at Sterling a 1 this afternoon and no one was there. I remember the game being at 1, the schedule I had with me said 1, but when I went to the Wawa on Warwick and bought a paper it was listed as 3. So I sat there in my car doing busyword for 90 minutes and went to the game. The time change certainly tightened things up, as the Wilson-Willingboro game was scheduled for 5:00 at least 30 minutes away, but I was optimistic. As long as Haddon Township and Sterling didn't go to overtime, I stood a good shot at being OK.

Never had a chance.

Haddon Township teased me with an eight-point lead in the third quarter, playing great defense, grabbing some boards. Sterling teased me by staying cold for pretty much the whole game, and I thought I was in the clear. But then Cassi Bryant decided to make my life more complicated. She pretty much ressurrected the Knights all by herself, and they started playing better as a team. They hit some foul shots, grabbed a lot of rebounds and a ton of loose balls, and changed the game. Kate Brennan still seems out of sync, but Sterling won today despite things not going their way.

As for Township, I always enjoy watching the Hawks play and today was no exception. Every girl on that team does one or two things extremely well. Nora Murphy can really handle the ball, Chrissy Barnett knows how to move without it, Sam Garwood is a terrific passer, Lori Merkh can really defend and Colleen Greway blocked seven shots. They just couldn't make a play when they needed to, and some brain cramps at the ends of periods, including overtime, really hurt them. The Hawks had the ball down three with 15 seconds left, but they couldn't find a shot right away. With about five seconds left, they drove for the easy two and Sterling was happy to let them have it. Once the quick two wasn't there, they needed to get a three off. But as Coach Mulligan said, "These are high school kids, and they make mistakes."

So the game ended, I jumped in my car at 4:31 and spent the next phase of my life breaking as many local ordinances as possible. I parked in the aforementioned quagmire and ran inside to find absolutely no available seats in the RV gym. I so wish this game had been scheduled for the other gym, the one with two sides of bleachers, but alas, luck was not on my side today. I only missed a little bit of the game, getting there in plenty of time to see De'ree Fooks' 1,000th career point and then watcher absolutely go off for the rest of the half. She was quueiter in the second, but I still think she's only of the best around. I've actually begun to think of her as a first-team All-SJ player most of the time.

I wasn't at all surprised by the outcome of this game. Boro played a lot harder than they did on Tuesday, but Wilson is also a better team than Spirit, even with the transfers eligible for the Spartans. There isn't much else to say about this game, other than to hope for the best of health for Tiffany Crews and Shinaa Cross. Both girls left the game with injuries -- Crews with a sprained ankle and Cross with a strained calf -- and Crews was on crutched afterwards. Both teams have huge games upcoming and great promise for the playoffs, but they really need those players in the lineup, and it's always a shame to see a player's season end with an injury.

Anyway, I'm going to try to sort out the playoff picture and the rankings. I'll post the T20 sometime tomorrow.

Cinnaminson 48, Holy Cross 26

2006-02-03T23:26:00.000-05:00

I don't have too much to say about this game. I was happy to see Cinnaminson play well, since the only other time I saw the Pirates they obviously didn't have the A game working. The defense they threw at Holy Cross tonight was impressive, especially since the Lancers do a pretty decent job setting high screens for their shooters. Once Cinnaminson kind of gave up on fighting through them and decided to concentrate on switching, HC had a lot more trouble.

I was glad that HC coach Fred Phillips came out to talk after the game. Those of you who have been reading for a long time might remember the misunderstanding when he didn't appear after the Eustace game, and he later told me that it would be fine to go back there looking for him. But I'm grateful it didn't come to that. As an outsider, something about the sanctity of a locker room makes me not want to break it even if the players have all gone.

The Burlco Patriot, like just about every other SJ division, is very close to resolution. All the Pirates have to do is beat Delran at home on Tuesday, and that's a wrap. Next week will also see Willingboro-RV and West Tech-Trenton Catholic games that will decide division races once and for all. AC and Gami will play for the CAL American I title tomorrow, American II is done, National I is down to Spirit-Pleasantville sometime soon, and Sacred Heart is just a win or two away in National II. I haven't figured out what Williamstown has to do, exactly, to take care of the Trico Royal, but beating Cumberland for a second time is just about it. Glassboro is pretty close to clinching in the Classic. All three divisions are done in the Olympic, with East and Timber Creek repeating and CC getting over the hump in the National.

That just leaves the Colonial, which continues to be a mess. When I scheduled myself to cover Haddon Township-Sterling tomorrow, I figured that game would have some sort of title implications, but after both those teams lost on Tuesday, it looks more like a very good fourth-place game. Next Tuesday's Haddonfield game at Collingswood will decide a lot. If the Haddons win, then they'll have the leg up with tough games against Sterling and Haddon Township left. If Collingswood wins, then it's a three-team race hinging on a Panthers home game against the only two-loss team left, Heights. If that seems complicated, you haven't been paying attention because it's actually a vast oversimplification. Mathematically, I'm pretty sure Haddon Township and Sterling both continue to have a chance.

I'm really looking forward to tomorrow's HTWp-Sterling game, because that matchup -- especially at Sterling's gym -- always seems to deliver a thriller. I know it went to overtime with the Hawks prevailing the first time, so I'm hoping for more of the same. I haven't seen Township play yet, and I haven't seen Sterling since covering them twice in the first week, so that will make it even more fun. I expect the Knights to be much improved, so long as Kate Brennan is in the lineup and healthy. From looking at the scores, it seems like her absence allowed Cassi Bryant to find her game a little bit, and it's they're able to play well on the same court at the same moment, that team could be an extremely formidable opponent in SJ Group 2.

The subplot of every game tomorrow, of course, is the cutoff, and the playoff picture that appears in the Varsity section will be subject to a ton on jostling. Tonight, for instance, Pitman might have secured the top seed in SJ Group 1 with a stunning upset of Williamstown, while the Braves almost certainly fell a spot or more in SJ Group 4. Buena played its way in today, while Moorestown Friends missed a chance to do the same. In short, there are very few inconsequential games this weekend. Those who have the time should really get out to see a game or two, if at all possible, because the intensity around this day can almost approach playoff proportions.

I'm happy to say that I'll be covering a second game: Willingboro-Wilson tomorrow evening at Rancocas Valley. The Boro will be trying to avoid losing two straight and Wilson will be trying to avoid losing three of its last four. I have no idea what the potential seeding situation is for Boro in CJ Group 3, but for the Tigers, a win could help and a loss would almost definitely hurt. In any case, it will be an entertaining contest, and I'll see you there.

OCity 51, Mainland 48

2006-02-03T16:50:00.000-05:00

Now that the cutoff date is just about upon us, the last of my nightmare Thursday nights is behind me. From now on, I might be able to actually post here within 12 hours of the game I cover on Thursdays.

Anyway, I walked into Mainland's gym last night and Karl Geisinger said, "You're a week early!" But I figured it was time to see Mainland play for their own sake, and not just because the Mustangs put on a great event like the Shootout at the Shore. I sat firmly in the OC cheering section, however, because one of my cousins is a Red Raider starter, and I had close relatives in the crowd. It was great to see them, and interesting to watch a game in the bosom of partisanship. I can't say I'll be looking for another opportunity, but the OC fans were not so bad, and pretty astute basketball-wise. Mainland made a lot of nice plays, and they recognized many of them too, if only very quietly.

Ocean City deserves its No. 9 ranking, but I fear for the Red Raiders against a Group 3 team like Wilson, which can outrun them, or Timber Creek, which has a very strong inside presence. OC is normally a running team itself, but they did a great job of changing their spots last night as a defense against the transtition abilities of Carlee Briglia and Sarah Cohen. I'd be anxious to see Mainland against a team that lets them run to their heart's content, because even though the Strangs have some hieght in the post, that height can run. I was particuarly impressed -- as I know OC coach Paul Baruffi and many in the OC section were -- with the speed of Lauren McPeak, who is so tall and thin that you'd think she couldn't run the fast break without seriously injuring herself. But she beat the Raiders down the court on the break twice early, and OC quickly learned to shut off the jets. As I look at the Group 4 teams likely to be there in the playoffs, I'm a little disappointed for Mainland because so many of them stress the half-court game and unlikely to try to run with the Stangs. Still, they'll have a better chance to turn up the pace on their own against many of those teams than they did last night, because OC is too small and quick to consistently turn the ball over in transition.

Another thing I was very impressed with was Mainland's foul shooting. From one end of the lineup to the other, those girls can scorch it from the stripe, and watching Briglia shoot fouls, I got the feeling she might never miss. That could be a real factor in close games down the stretch, the just need to get some leads. So many leading teams are susceptible to the foul-to-get-possession strategy late in games. I can imagine that -- given the ball-handling ability and experience of those two guards in addition to the team-wide strong foul shooting -- Mainland is an excellent closer.

I thought OC was going to brick its way out of the lead in the last minute last night, but Nancy White steadied the ship at the line in a way that -- as the point guard -- she'll continue to learn to do better during the flow of the game. She's got good size and great ability, and it'll be interesting to see what sort of lead guard she turns out to be. Talking to her after the game, I realized she has the will to play the position; she wants the responsibility, whether it be at the foul line or on the court.

The other stars of the game for OC were Michelle McKinley and, off the bench, Casey Beyel. Those were two names I recognized from the girls' lacrosse season, so I'm not surprised at all that they turned out to be terrific athletes. The whole team is full of those sorts of players, and many times they can be the most fun to watch because raw athletic ability can turn into skill at any time. I think the key is not to start to count on that from any one player. Just play hard and hopefully somebody steps up and makes a play.

Anyway, I'm headed to Cinnaminson-Holy Cross in literally a minute. This one will go a long way towards deciding the Burlco Patriot Division.

A notice...

2006-02-02T03:20:00.000-05:00

... on items set to appear in the C-P:

There was supposed to be a feature on Shawnee junior point guard Mackenzie O'Brien in the paper today (Thursday) but with national signing day and a bunch of other things going on, space was too tight. So hopefully that story will appear in Friday's paper, or possibly in Saturday's or Sunday's. For those who have not noticed the pattern, there's been a GB feature on a player in just about every Thursday since the season started, and other days belong to other sports. So when one story gets held for whatever reason, it's hard to know what day it will land on. My apologies for any inconvenience. I just looked at the section now and realized it's not there.

Spirit 53, Boro 36

2006-02-01T21:15:00.000-05:00

Today was the second day in a row that I have seen impeccable ball movement leave a high-pressure defense dizzy, yesterday it was Wilson as the victim and today it was the Boro. Spirit passed the ball just beautifully this afternoon in Chimeraland, and looked much improved from the last time I saw them, against Wilson. Sykes is a great player, of course, but the girls that made the difference today were Froumy and Kofeldt. Maybe Sykes' time out of the lineup allowed these two to get more comfortable with the ball, because they didn't make too many mistakes today. In fact, every single starter on the team had at least one assist. How's that for a statistic.

I'm also well aware that I didn't see Willingboro's best effort today. I give a lot of credit to Tiffany Musgrove for carrying the flag for the Boro -- off the bench no less -- but she was basically alone out there after the first quarter. The Chimeras' vaunted D had very little swarm today, not that I think it really would have mattered. The game wasn't that close.

I understand Boro had an especially tough practice on Tuesday, and that many of the players had sore legs. I'm not sure what the thinking was behind it -- that is true -- but I'm still not sure how I feel about it. A team has to practice hard sometime, though the coaching staff had to know that Spirit was going to try to wear them down and make them chase for long half-court possessions if they got the lead. I agree with the need to work hard, even the day before a big regular season game, but it seems like it gave the players a ready-made excuse to give up when they were down late.

The addition of this last wave of transfers definitely gives Spirit some real depth, especially in the front court. Marsh had a really nice second half today, especially defensively, and I continue to be impressed with the ability of the freshman, Jesse Frasier. She's like another Chelsi Johnson in that I could see her handling the ball and shooting mid-range jumpers as well as banging inside. She's not quite as big as Johnson, I don't think, but she has made up for it with speed the two times I've seen her. In many ways, the fact that Marsh had to sit out the 30 days had a real positive effect on Frasier's season, as it gave her a chance to start a bunch of games, get a lot of time and esstablish herself in the rotation. The way she played when I saw them against Wilson, I don't know how you keep her off the court for long.

As far as I can tell, this cements Spirit as the No. 2 seed in SJ Non-Public A, setting up a potentially awesome semifinal matchup with Red Bank Catholic on the Spartans' home court. That bracket is really stacked from top to bottom, from CC all the way down to Paul VI and St. John Vianney. That, along with SJ Group 1 and Group 2, will be the unpredicatble brackets of the playoffs, I think. CC is a clear favorite with major big-gaem questions to answer in N-P A, and plenty of teams there are very ready to ask them. Those two small public groups are really without favorites whatsoever. SJ Group 4 and Group 3 both have clear and tested big dogs in Gami and Wilson.

Tomorrow, I'll be down at Mainland for the Ocean City game. It was an 11-point contest at the OC almost exactly a month ago, but I expect a tighter matchup this time around, on the Mustangs' home floor. If I'm not mistaken, this will be my first trip to Mainland that is not for the Shootout at the Shore, my absolute favorite of the annual weekend showcase events. Should be fun. See you there.

Timber Creek 46, Shawnee 34

2006-02-01T12:35:00.000-05:00

After the dizzying pace of Camden Catholic-Wilson, this defensive battle was actually something of a relief.

Shawnee looked up to the challenge early on, but the Renegades' offense just disappeared. Paart of it was TC's defense, which was good, and part of it was just that Shawnee could not make a shot. After speaking with Gina Santone at length the evening before, I was ready for the Renegades to panic, but they didn't, at least not until the fourth quareter. Mackenzie O'Brien was stymied by Lindsay Steele's D, and so she kept giving the ball up. Three or four times she made what should have been a beautiful assist, but ended up being nothing, a layup missed. O'Brien did start to launch them late int eh game with her team down 10, but who could blame her at that point. Not me, certainly.

I was impressed with Shawnee's freshman forward, Kira Maier. She was the force beind the Renegades' early lead, and she was one of the many responsible for hemming in Erin Floyd defensively. With time will come polish, but she has the aggression and the size to be a terrific player in the future.

Floyd was masterful, even as little more than a decoy. She played like a guard for much of the game, shooting from the outside, bringing the ball up the floor, making assists. She really let the game come to her, which is something many players of her caliber definitely struggle with. part of that ability has to be trust in her teammates, however, and they seemed to have earned that as time had gone on. Steele certainly earned it last night. She was an assassin, a calm note against a chaotic background. What I think I liked most, aside from her terrific positional D on O'Brien, was the way she found open spots on the floor. She didn't force anything, but a tough would open up in the Shawnee zone and she's just settle right in there and it would be like, "How did she det that open." Lindsay Steele may never be able to go five steps on a basketball court without somebody mentioning her older sister, but I made sure to leave that part out of the story for today's paper because she earned the stage by herself.

I have couple things to do in the next two hours,, but then I'll be off to Willingboro to see the Chieras play host to Spirit. The next day I'm probably going down to Mainland to see if Ocean City can close the deal in the CAL's American II division. Friday, I believe, is Cinnaminson v. Holy Cross to virtually decide the Burlco Patriot, and Saturday is Haddon Township at Sterling plus the excitement of the cutoff day. Should be fun.

CC/Wilson, Appendix A

2006-02-01T11:59:00.000-05:00

Woodrow Wilson coach Al Dyer had some trouble adding his comment to last night's post, but he did email it to me, so I'll post it here:

"I personally think your choice of words "went after the officials" wasn't fair in your blog. You know what happened at Highland. I think people that was not in attendance may think that I charged after the officails, however I do appreciate the fact that you didn't place all of my quotes in the Courier-Post. We are defending T.O.C. Champs in SJ and the only ink we get in your paper is when we lose. There are numerous stories to write about WW however the only ink we receive is when we lose. The lack of respect WW receives baffles me and to say that it was the best girls basketball you ever seen scares me. I guess you were in a space capsule last season."

To be honest, the Highland situation from several years ago never once crossed my mind when I chose those wrods, and had I thought of it, I would have certainly chosen different ones. No, Coach Dyer never charged after the officials. When I wrote "went after," I meant via his comments. There was never a single moment when I thought Coach Dyer was even close to losing his physical composure yesterday afternoon.

On the second point, that we only write about Wilson when they lose: This team is in the relatively unfortunate position this season of playing a lot of very good teams with a lineup that is still finding itself. There's no way -- when Wilson plays Gami, Catholic twice, Spirit, and others of the like -- that we're going to go see the Tigers kill even a good team like BE or Paul VI. We want to see those top teams tested, and though Wilson has not been quite equal to teams like Gami and CC so far this year, they are still a very worthy standard by which good and even great teams rightly measure themselves.

On the third point, I might have gotten a little carried away with how good Camden Catholic looked yesterday, but in point of fact, not by much. I should probably have pointed out that I was mired in swimming and myriad other things last year, and never actually saw Wilson play. Not even once was I so lucky. Obviously, the Tigers of 04-05 deserve to be mentioned at or near the top of any all-time great list, as the only SJ squad to do what they did was Sterling '01. The Willingboro team in Crystal's junior year was the best squad I ever saw play myself. Poorly prepared for a real test in the end, but still the best squad. Catholic's display yesterday, I believe, was perhaps on par with Highland '04, for those of you who saw that team play. Of course, the Irish's trio of stars is not quite as bright as the three the Tartans had that year, but their balance from 1-7 or 8 is much greater. No one Catholic is likely to run out there is a weak link.

CC 88, Wilson 66

2006-01-31T23:58:00.000-05:00

Wow. That's porbably the best I've seen a HS girls' team play since Willingboro in the 02-03 season.

Actually, Crew probably didn't have her best game, but she did hold the solution to the Wilson pressure, and she didn't have to be perfect when everyone else was just money. Ra's hands were great today, and she finished. Matera made great decisions with the ball, Gallagher had one of the most efficient games I've seen her play, and Lane did what she does, which is rebound, pass and defend. They just didn't show Wilson any weaknesses today, which is why I was suprised when Coach Dyer went after the officials after the game.

Maybe I'm now just "the guy who will write about officiating" -- though I don't think it's fair since Pete Shnatz did the same in the Inky last week -- but Mancini's comments seem to have emboldened Dyer. "I'm not afraid to talk about it," he kept saying. "When your team is playing against seven, you have no chance. If they would just let us play defense, then we could play some basketball against anybody. We're not this bad."

And while I agree with him on that last point -- Wilson isn't 22 points inferior to any team in the state, it was just one of those days -- I find it hard to agree with him this time on the officiating. From where I sat, I thought the refs did a decent job, and considering the game's pace, I'd even go so far as to say it was a well-officiated game. Rashidat only went to the line a couple of times, and given her size and skill, she doesn't need the refs' help to dominate the way she did. I know that Coach Dyer will disagree, and maybe he saw things that I didn't see, but in the grand scheme of things I can say with absolute certainty that officiating did not decide the game's result. Catholic was just too good on this particular day, and certain players had off days for Wilson.

Anyway, congratulations to Chrissy Palladino for No. 400, which makes her No. 3 on the active list in the area, as far as I can tell. There were some Dark Ages back there five or six seasons ago, for which we have no stats or concrete results, and that makes things hard when we're trying to figure out the lists of area leaders for scoring and coaching. Basically, we know the record now both belong to Wildwood -- Moni Johnson in career scoring and Dave Troiano in career wins -- but about three or four places in the top 10 are a complete mystery. I do feel safe in saying that, among active coaches, Troiano is obviously No. 1 with over 500, Tom Inzillo from Hammonton is No. 2 with something between 405 and 410, with Palladino closing in with 400 even. The only retired coach I'm sure falls in there is Bill Ulrich, who used to hold the record with 503. It's hard to believe only four coaches in the history of South Jersey GB have 400 or more victories, but the evidence is lacking either way.

As I mentioned a few days ago, the plan was to cover two games today, and I followed through with that plan. I have to go out and let some stress loose right now, but I'll post about the Timber Creek-Shawnee game sometime in the next 12-16 hours. I''l be covering the Holy Spirit-Willingboro game tomorrow evening at the Boro. That should be a lot of fun, especially now that both JSykes AND SPirit's full complement of transfers are all active at the same time. I'll be itnerested to see if Rich and Alleyne can rattle Sykes with pressure, and I can't wait to see if the Johnson-Frazier-Marsh front court combination can stand up to Willingboro's underrated Crews-Ajike duo.

New C-P T20

2006-01-29T14:06:00.000-05:00

Once again, the top part of this sucker was simple. It started getting hard at No. 10 and by No. 15 or 16, it was as difficult as it gets:

1. CCath
2. Gami
3. Wilson
4. Spirit
5. Boro
6. AC
7. RV
8. CH East
9. OC
10. Eustace
11. PVI
12. WTwp
13. Willstown
14. Cumberland
15. Cherokee
16. SHeart
17. Mainland
18. EHT
19. Haddonfield
20. Glassboro

Almost: Collingswood, Heights, Moorestown, Timber Creek, Sterling, Haddon Twp., Cinnaminson, Pleasantville, WWCath.

I decided to put BE at 10 because I needed to move PVI up and BE beat PVI. Plus, BE has not lost to anybody outside the T10 with Lazos in the lineup, and she's playing some great basketball of late.

SHeart getting clobbered by a JSykes-less Spirit team was troubling, but not enought to drop them out of the T20 altogether. I'm wondering what will happen when the Hearts play Wildwood Catholic. That CAL National II Division is deceptively tough, with just one easy win in five squads.

The Colonial continues to be a pain in the neck. Somebody from Heights asked me before the HField game if the Garnets would stay ranked if they won, and my knee-jerk answer was, "Yes, of course." But the more I looked at it, the more bothersome it became, what with the interwoven league losses and that defeat to Mainland at the Cougar Classic. Plus, I think this week it's Collingswood's turn to be playing the best basketball in the Colonial, and they beat HH to prove it.

So, I put Mainland back in for having beaten EHT and HH earlier in the season and kicking the crap out of Hammonton 66-17 on Friday. Then I decided to leave Haddonfield at 19 despite two straight losses and a two-overtime scare at Audubon before that, mostly because the Dawgs are the only Colonial team with real, quality out-of-conference wins, which came against No. 8 CH East and No. 16 Sacred Heart. I'm not sure how good that SH win really is, but the CHE victory looks better and better, even if it is getting farther and farther in the past.

I'm fairly certain there will always be a Colonial representative in the T20, but the days of the league having five teams in there have taken a vacation. Collingswood was probably the next team in, but next week it could be somebody else from the Colonial Big 5.

Finally, at No. 20 I put Glassboro there because they only have two losses, and have strung together 10 straight wins. If the Bulldogs get Rachel Fowler back, they might well be the SJ Group 2 favorite, in addition to being the top seed.

Anyway, I'll be at CC-Wilson II on Tuesday afternoon, and I might try to get to Shawnee-Timber Creek later that night, since I haven't seen TC in a while and I haven't seen the Renegades at all. Plus, that game is basically for the Olympic Patriot title. Hopefully there will be room in the paper for both games.

Gloucester 43, GCath 42

2006-01-29T13:40:00.000-05:00

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.

Palmyra 62, Florence 42

2006-01-27T23:01:00.000-05:00

This was my first game of the season in one of my favorite divisions, the Burlco Freedom. The teams from this division don't often crack the T20, but the rivalries are fierce. Palmyra-Riverside is probably the bloodiest of these rivalries, but Palmyra-Florence -- at least in girls' basketball -- apears nearly as spirited.

This is also my first time seeing Lailah Pratt play. She's pretty good, though I'm sure I didn't see her best for a number of reasons. She did go 16-for-18 from the free throw line, which is a nice state no matter what level or even gender you're talking about. Those were some of the toughest 21 points I've seen in a while, because Florence usually got its money's worth. I might have done the same thing, because she's obviously got the ability to sink you if you don't slow her down somehow.

I thought Florence played awesome in the first quarter, and was extremely unlucky to be up by just one. Lakia Artis couldn't miss from long range, and her 10 first-quarter points were the only thing keeping Florence from a big edge. When the Flashes came back to earth, Palmyra just kept going, scoring 16 in each of the first two periods. Lauren Jacobsen's game was interesting -- kind of a point center at some moments -- but she ran into early foul trouble. The team's real point guard, Carly Blanton, was fun to watch too. She's like the rivalry -- a lot of spirit.

Walt Burrows and Bob Viggiano both warned me that the Florence gym is always really really hot, but I didn't notice any difference from other gyms. I came prepared, dressed in layers and ready to shed down to a t-shirt, but I didn't need it. I think one of the things that makes the Burlco Freedom so cool is the gyms, many of which seem to be old and creaky, with those skinny kinds of floorboards. Sitting in the bleachers, I could feel every bounce of the ball and when Jacobsen and Palmyra's Lindy Iannacone collided late in the game and both went down, the thump was so strong I wondered how either could have stood up. But thankfully, both eventualy did and -- unless I'm mistaken -- everyone escaped the game without serious injury. It's kind of a miracle, because those girls were taking no prisoners whatsoever.

One last thing about this game: Florence coach Vince Cipriano had one of the best quotes of the year, which may or may not make the paper depending on the personal whim of the CP copy editors. He was unhappy with his kid's scatterbrained mistakes in the last three quarters, and said, "This is a bad country to be weak in and it's a bad country to be dumb in. Right now we're weak and we're a little bit dumb." I think some of the right-leaning sports desk might balk at putting the words "bad" and "country" next to each other in print, but I thought the quote was hilarious. And it wasn't meant to really down the players, other than to say they have to play smarter or expect more games like tonight's.

I'll be at another rivalry game tomorrow afternoon -- Gloucester Catholic at Gloucester -- and I'm looking forward to watching the Lions' red-headed freshman point guard, who finally has a name attached to her in my head. "Erin McAdams" is a phrase I've heard from several people in the last couple of weeks, as well-meaning folks have endeavored to help me out. In any case, I'm looking forward to it. See you there.

Response to dtsfan

2006-01-27T22:47:00.000-05:00

First of all, I don't remember screwing the chapter with the Heather Kile story, unless you're referring to the quotes by Trish Green. (For those who don't remember, a couple of years ago I wrote a story about former Holy Cross and Swarthmore star Heather Kile, who was a cadet referee at the time.) But I don't think you can tell that story without someone to voice the concerns that so many seems to have. I'm not interesting in putting out propaganda for anybody, even an organization which I believe in and admire, like WC5.

Second, you're wrong in saying the section of the story in today's paper about the sixth man t-shirts was a manifestation of my opinion. It read, "Haddonfield left feeling like the referees should have been wearing them." Given the quotes that appeared -- even disregarding all those that didn't appear -- isn't it clear that's the way Haddonfield felt?

Third, I don't think officiating is easy. In fact, I think it's extremely hard, especially in basketball. I've spoken with lots of referees and when they tell me it's hard, I not only believe them, I imagine it's harder than I could even understand. But to talk to them after a game -- to quote the refs -- would only throw gas on the fire in addition to singling out the officials involved. As I said in the previous post, I think it was a case of decent officials having an off night in a very big game. It was definitely a judgment call including the stuff in the story for the paper, but I think the fact that two experienced reporters saw the same things, heard the same things and essentially wrote the same thing ought to tell you something. As for this site, I'm entitled to do pretty much anything I want to here, though I don't believe I've acted irresponsibly anyway.

Heights 46, Haddonfield 33

2006-01-27T16:04:00.000-05:00

I had too much to do last night, in the way of updating records and finishing the stuff for Saturday's Varsity section, to even think about posting about this game, but I knew I'd have to come back to it today, however briefly.

Coaches complain about refereeing all the time, especially in this sport, but I almost always ignore them when it comes times to write the stories. Those of you who picked up today's edition or read the story online already know that I couldn't -- or at least I didn't -- do the same last night. Part of it was that both coaches were in off moods after the game. I couldn't figure out quite what Hamburger was upset about, but Mancini was seriously ticked. He's not normally a quote machine, and I was struggling to get him going, asking standard questions you ask a coach whose team just came up on the short end of a big game. The questions sound inane, and in point of fact they are inane, but they're really just ways to let the coaches say stuff like, "You know, it's a long season and it's not over. We'll get back to work tomorrow and try to learn from this. (Inset other team) deserved to win today, but I think we've got better games ahead of us. We'll take it one day at a time and hopefully things start to go our way." That's not the kind of answer I was getting from Mancini. All he really opened up about was the officiating, which I actually agree was a factor, especially in the first half. (I have a post or two about officiating in me, but that's for the future. For now, just know that I disagree with the annual uproar against WC5 for some very important reasons.) So while I would go a certain distance to protect a coach from what many would see as bad judgment, he didn't give me (or Pete from the Inky) much else to go with. And he wasn't all that civil, which didn't help either.

As I said, I'm not totally unsympathetic to Mancini's feelings. In fact, when I talked to Sam Carter and asked her how she turned the rebounding so hard in Heights' direction, she said something very much like, "I started pushing them down and it was a lot easier." Now, maybe she doesn't know she's not allowed to do that. It seems unlikely in a player of her skill and experience, but it definitely lends credence to a Mancini comment like, "(Carter) gets away with a lot."

Officials are human, however, and as entitled to a bad night as any player or coach, so I tried to stay away from specifics in the game story. I don't think it's any more fair to dwell on those mistakes as it would be to mention a girl bricking a couple foul shots that could have tied the game in the middle of the second quarter. Nobody was saying the refs at last night's game were out to get Haddonfield, they just didn't have the best night.

Carter played a nice game, and because somebody had mentioned she probably belonged on the list of All-SJ midyear candidates, I watched her a little more closely than I might have. She definitely has incredible ability, but I couldn't help thinking she should have been dominating that game. She was taller and bigger than anybody else out on the court. I know she had a sprained ankle, but she claimed it didn't bother her after warm-ups, and I'll give her a pass on running the floor for that anyway. She has very good hands to go with her strength, and she was able to do a lot of things one-handed, where most female players need two. At times, however, she needed two and used one anyway, and that's problematic when there are so many fundamentally sound girls out there. Overall, I think she has awesome promise, and could well dominate the league as a senior, even with a talent as bright as Meredith Kennedy on her own squad.

Refs or no, Kennedy was the star of the game last night. I was impressed as ever with her and Ryanne Donnellon, and the two girls may be forever linked in my mind after this. Donnellon's game seemed more about spot-up shooting and Kennedy's was about more getting to the basket, but I know both has each capability. I saw the same ability to be creative in traffic, perhaps with a little edge to Kennedy for a couple of truly awesome baseline drives. Donnellon's stroke from the outside is pretty, and when she made her first I thought she might never miss. But of course, she did. It happens to all shooters, even the great ones, which brings me to my final point.

When I talk about Haddonfield to other folks, one phrase keeps coming up: "They do what they do." And Mancini sort of said it himself in that excruciating post-game interview last night: "We are what we are." I know the Dawgs can shoot, but they've hit a very cold couple of weeks and I think, with the game in reach as late was halfway through the fourth last night, it might have been time to call an audible and try to get to the basket a few times. Donnellon was the only one doing it last night, and she was in foul trouble from the first quarter on. I never count shots, mostly because I can't do that and count rebounds and assists and steals at the same time, but partly because the stats would be ugly on most nights. But I wish I had counted the Haddonfield threes in the fourth quarter. I bet they took a three on more than half their possessions in the final period. Lupinski made one, but they had just one other field goal in the entire eight minutes.

Anyway, enough. I'm headed up to Florence tonight to see the Flashes take on Lailah Pratt and Palmyra. Florence could clinch a playoff berth with a win. Should be interesting. See you there.

Paul VI 58, Washington Twp. 45

2006-01-25T00:51:00.000-05:00

This wasn't a division game, but the atmosphere was all charged up anyway.

Maybe it was the desperation that PVI has been under for the last few weeks, needing to win every single winnable game to make the playoff. Maybe it was the Maids one win away from clinching its own place in the postseason. Maybe... probably, actually... it was a rowdy bunch of fans. I was sitting at center court, about halfway up the bleachers just on the visitors' side of the gym, and some Washington Township students were sitting right in front ot me. If the Paul VI players hadn't responded so well to their relentless heckling, I would have said it crossed the line. It was kind of funny after a while. During a lull, one of them yelled out the unimaginative, "You suck," and one of the Reillys let go what I could only describe as "a withering stare," right at the guy. Late in the game, with Megan Montchyk going to the line every 20 seconds or so and drilling her shots, the Township fans got desperate and started asking for prom dates, which I mentioned to Montchyk after the game. She just said, "I've already got one." It struck me as funny enough to include in the "Inside the Game" box that goes along with the game story in the paper.

Speaking of the story, there was a real space crunch tonight and quite a bit of it got cut off, including Washington Township coach Donna Costa's take. The quote I used, or tried to use, was kind of innocuous, but she was not happy with somebody. I had neither the time nor the inclination to delve any further than that in our conversation, but apparently there were Maids who did not play with the urgency Costa was looking for. I won't even speculate on who that might be.

Anyway, after seeing PVI play for the first time, I can see how they might give any team trouble. They're not only tall, they're very long. I lost count of the times they affected Washington Township shots that looked open just a split second before, barely outreached a better-positioned Minutemaid for a rebound, or made an unlikely catch in the low post. Washington Township's defenders were taking risks on some of those plays, seeing they had equal position with the offensive player, but the PVI girls would just pluck the ball out of the air and turn unguarded to the basket, the WTwp defender having gambled herself out of the play.

I was also impressed with the PVI aggressiveness in transition. Maybe four or five times, they threw long over the Township pressure to a teammate breaking behind the D. It really looked like a football play, where a wideout catches the safety flatfooted and the QB just throws it out there, letting the reciever track it down. Except this almost always worked because they could let the ball bounce. That's the kind of risk that even turnover-phobic coaches can like, because it loosens up the pressure and makes the other team think, plus it often yields a layup, which all coaches love to see.

I was impressed with all five PVI starters today, though it was difficult to tell them apart at times. All those Reillys look alike, and their numbers are similar. Plus Meg Harker is tall too, with a number consecutive with the Reillys. I thought I was going to have a tough enough time differentiating between Amanda Jennings and Kate Montgomery on Washington Township, but unfortunately for Costa and the Maids, those two never got hot at the same time so it wasn't that hard for me.

Washington Township certainly didn't play the same level of game they did last week against Cherokee, but I think they just went to the well one too many times. The players seemed maybe a little too comfortable with the idea of being a fourth-quarter team, and a 10-point deficit wasn't as daunting as it should have been. If they're going to win the division and/or go far in SJ Group 4, Washington Township is going to have to play with some leads, or at least keep it real close. There are only so many miracles in the bag, and a team never knows when they're going to run out.

I was very happy for the Eagles, however, as it appears they're over the hump as far as the playoffs are concerned. All they have to do, it seems, is beat Little Flower and not lose to Camden County Tech, and they can just play the Eustace game for gravy. I have to figure out where they should be ranked now, though there are some more games between now and then. They don't really have any bad losses, and if they avenge the one to BE, I could see them jumping into the Top 10, by virtue of the wins over Haddonfield and Washington Twp.

Speaking of the Haddons, Heights might have been guilty of looking ahead today, and Haddonfield almost got caught too. Collingswood took out HH one game before Thursday's home showdown with the Dawgs. Big win for the Colls. I almost went to that game, but I'll just have to catch Collingswood sometime soon. I will, however, be at the big Thursday game, which is now just for a share of the Colonial lead. Haddonfield almost let chaos reign in the Colonial, but pulled out a two-overtime win at Audubon. That was the Green Wave's second 2OT game in a couple weeks, and I feel bad for them. A win there could have repaired the damage done in a loss to Paulsboro and put them back on track for a playoff berth, which now looks like a real long shot. Anyway, if Heights beats Haddonfield Thursday, they'll both have two league losses and they'll have split with each other, leaving the stage open for a spoiler. Collingswood has three losses with wins over Haddon Township and Heights; Haddon Township has two losses with wins over Haddonfield and Sterling; Heights already has wins over Sterling and Haddon Township; Haddonfield has victories over Heights, Collingswood and Sterling. The Silver Knights would appear to be in the worst position, but they have just three losses, plus a win over Collingswood and the biggest X-factor in the league with Kate Brennan, depending whether she's healthy.

So, the game that promised to tie everything up in a nice neat bow now offers little of the sort. If Haddonfield wins, however, it will definitely be difficult for anybody to wrest the conference title from their grasp entirely. Basically, I'm predicting right now that the Colonial champ will have three league losses, and anybody who finished with just two will look like a runaway champ.

Anyway, see you at Heights.

New C-P T20

2006-01-21T20:45:00.000-05:00

I'm pretty tired today, and the changes weren't monumental, so I'm going to keep the analysis brief. In any case, here goes:

1. the Irish
2. Gami
3. Wilson
4. Spirit
5. Boro
6. AC
7. RV
8. CH East
9. OCity
10. Haddons
11. Billstown
12. the 'Maids
13. Cumberland
14. the Hearts
15. Heights
16. BE
17. PVI
18. Cherokee
19. Pennsauken
20. EHT

Almost: Mainland, Moorestown, Sterling, Pleasantville, Cinnaminson, NBC, Colls, HTwp, HC, Delran

I finally have the top the way I really, really wanted to put it at the beginning of the season -- CC, Gami, WW, Spirit -- but now with the addition of two more transfers, who knows how good Spirit really is. And Wilson has played better and better, Gami has struggled, and Boro still hasn't lost to anybody from SJ.

I feel good about the top of the list, though, and even the rest of the ranking is probably one of the most comfortable of the year so far. The only real hemming and hawing on my part came at the very ened, where I wondered what to do with Mainland after the bad loss to Pleasantville and the good one to Gami. Eventually, I decided to put the winner of the Pleasantville-Egg Harbor Township game in at No. 20, and it turned out to be EHT. Further, I decided that I could not drop a team (Heights) that did not lose, even though the team they lost to the week before lost to an unranked squad.

It sounds confusing, but trsut me when I say that this was an easy week.

Midyear All-SJ candidates

2006-01-21T05:04:00.000-05:00

Remember, there are only five places on the All-SJ first team, and five on the second team. That's all the CP names, and then we do two teams each for Group 4, Group 3, 2, 1 and Non-Public.

So this is a list of girls that I feel have earned consideration with their play in the first half of the season. This is not to say somene not on the list cannot make one of the two All-SJ teams for the CP, but it just means they aren't on my radar screen yet. I full expect, and hope, to be surprised later on in the season.

Anyway, in no particular order:

Centers:
Rashidat Junaid
Sara Mostafa
Chelsea Cole

Power forwards:
Erin Floyd
Laura Sweeney
Ivy Abiona
Chelsi Johnson

Small forwards:
Tasha Cannon
De'ree Fooks
Katie Piekielski
Elise Graham
Katie Brennan
Kiesha Beavers
Tara Booker

Shooting guards:
Jessica Gerald
Brittany Smith
Ashley Baker
Meredith Kennedy
Christine Matera

Point guards:
Jordan Sykes
Jasmine Crew
Shinaa Cross
Ryanne Donnellon
Lauren Howell

Dark horses:
Mary Beato, Lindsay Hudspeth, Krystal Lazos, Keyona Grant, Gina Catanzariti (sp?), Aiesha Alleyne, Lauren Gregg, etc.

Now, there are names I left off the list on purpose and there are names I left off because they simply slipped my mind, and I'll leave the reader to speculate on which list any given omitted player belongs on. Also, there are teams out there I have yet to see play a full game. Mainland spings to mind, and Briglia or Cohen may belong on that list, but I saw the Mustangs play like two meaningless minutes at the end of the Heights game, so I couldn't say. Also, somebody like Coleman from Pleasantville may belong, but I only saw her on a bad day.

As I mentioned before, there's a lot of season left. These are just the kids that have made an impression so far, and considering there are only 10 spots up for grabs, there's a pretty good chance that at least eight or nine, if not all 10 of the eventual All-SJ players are listed above.
In the next couple of days, I'm going to try to rig up a midterm Coach of the Year candidate list, so stay tuned.

Washington Twp. 59, Cherokee 53, OT

2006-01-21T01:28:00.000-05:00

There was a moment, in the middle of this game, when I thought about Laura Sweeney as a first-team All-SJ player, meaning she was one of the top five players in the whole area regardless of grade. I can't say that's where I ended up, but the fact that she was there -- maybe not quite a Cannon or Junaid but right there with absolutely everybody else -- speaks to how well she was playing. Now she and the Chiefs just need to finish.

Now, I've never been all that impressed with Washington Township in the past, considering all the kids in that school and the relative lack of championships and big wins. But it was impossible not to be impressed with the Maids once the fourth quarter began tonight. Off the top of my head, they scored 26 points in the first 24 minutes of play and 33 in the last 12 minutes. Montgomery was money, Kool-Aid was money, so was Petell, Messick, Fort. Everybody had their moment, in fact, and some had a lot of them, and that definitely includes the freshmen, Dana and Shawna Wert. I don't think either one scored tonight, but they affected the game with defense, poise and huge rebounds. Watching Dana and Tara Mangold go eyeball-to-eyeball -- shoving, snarling, biting, the whole bit -- two thirds of the way down the court every time Cherokee inbounded was really a thrill, especially when I imagined doing it for two more seasons after this.

After watching tonight, I realize that the Olympic American has come a long, long way from the wasteland it was back in 2003, my last full GB season. It may not have the star power of the Oly National or the tradition of the Colonial, but it does have one thing over everyone else: there isn't a bad team in it. Case in point, my choices for tonight's coverage were down to the game I attended and Lenape-Pennsauken. In one, the winning team came from behind to force overtime, and the other one was a one-point game. There have been a couple of blowouts, but they have all be surprises.

I've been getting a lot luckier lately with the games I've been picking. I didn't get to see CC-BTech, of course, but my game Thursday -- Salem came back from 16 down to beat Pitman on the road -- was a white knuckler, Spirit-Wilson was very good, so was Cinnaminson-Delran. Williamstown-Kingsway was a comeback upset, and Audubon avoided getting upset at home against Lindenwold, but it took two overtimes. The only clunker I threw in the middle or all that was Wildwood-Pennsville, but that was more about Troiano than the game, of course. In fact, I'd have been dying of nervousness if that had been close since the whole reason I was there was to see Wildwood win.

Anyway, all praise to the basketball gods for the recent good luck, and here's hoping it continues.

I had a nice conversation with Dom Reitano before the game, about a whole bunch of different teams. The best revelation was that the red-headed point guard I saw play for Gloucester is a freshman, and I'm not the only one who thinks she's awesome. I'm hoping to see the Lions play this coming week for real for real. Dom told me her name, which I have of course forgotten, but when I see it I'll remember it.

I noticed there were a few coaches in attendance tonight, which is not a surprise at all. Not only was Township-Cherokee a can't-miss good game, but it was a Friday night. Normally the Friday schedule is very slim pickings, and I would know. I have to pick a Friday game to cover every single week, and sometimes it's extremely difficult to find one that doesn't look dreadful. There are always games that turn out to be good, but a lot of Fridays it's next to impossible to figure out which ones they'll be.

I'm going to end this now, but when I get finished, but there will be another post forthcoming pretty quickly, as in maybe 30 minutes from now. I'm going to put together a list of All-SJ midyear candidates, giving everybody a chance to tell me where I've gone wrong. Should be entertaining.

The fun begins

2006-01-19T00:54:00.000-05:00

I was flipping around the net, waiting to fall asleep just now, and I decided to check out the CP's Varsity forum, which has proved to be mildly amusing the few times I've been there. I don't know how many folks actually use it, but I do take pride in the fact that it's seen more action than any of the other CP forums, save perhaps "General Discussion."

Anyway, I saw just now that somebody (apparently a reader of this blog) has seen fit to rip me for not being at the CC-Bloomfield Tech game, asking how I could possibly miss it. Never mind the fact that a reader of this blog would have already seen my explanation, which I will not repeat. The real point is:

Who the hell do you think you are to suggest I'm not doing my job?

Yes it was a big game, yes it was bound to be exciting. So I made sure that the paper was there, respresented. I cannot be everywhere, and I particularly cannot be everywhere "you" want me to be. I cannot substitute anyone else's judgment for my own, and that includes every single player, coach, parent and fan out there. The only people who get to question that judgment and expect me to listen are my bosses, and so far as I know, they don't. I work way too hard to have to answer to anybody else.

As far as the coverage of the game goes, I think Mike Radano did a great job, and everybody had to be happy with the placement as the center package on the front page of the sports section. And in case anyone's counting, that THREE straight girls' basketball center packages, from Wilson-Spirit to CC-BT to Troiano's record-breaking win (at which I was the only reporter, inexplicably). I honestly don't think anybody can touch us on high school sports in this area anymore, so much that the competition is no longer fun. I try my best to take that coverage to another level despite the fact that I don't necessarily need to, but if folks think I/we aren't doing enough they're free to look elsewhere, and the best of luck with that.

And one more thing: in the future, those who would like to ask me a question can do so via email, or preferably, in the comments on this blog. An actual name attached would be a nice gesture as well. I'm not hiding, and I alone assume resposibility for the stuff I put on here. I chose to respond to this criticism in a place where everyone will know the words are mine, and since the outlet for comments is available to everyone, I do wish that more would use it. Speaking from the boys' soccer experience, the more comments there were, the better the content tended to be.

I'm aware that some folks respond to blog posts at the nj.com forum where I put up what I call "the alert," but to be honest, I only skim the stuff that's there. That whole scene is kind of nauseating, even more than I remember, and I'd rather just use it for what it's worth and leave the rest. On the contrary, I have often responded to blog comments in the past, either in the comment box itself or in later posts. It's always been an avenue for dialogue between a lot of voices, as opposed to the few that seem to rule at nj.com. I'll still post the alerts because it has proved to be a reliable way to bring people to this site, but don't count on me reading any responses there.

Congratulations Dave Troiano

2006-01-17T23:22:00.000-05:00

Wildwood beat Pennsville 58-36 tonight, giving Troiano the SJ record for career girls' basketball victories all by himself, at 504. The record used to belong to Sterling's Bill Ulrich, who has more than 600 career wins spread over the Knights' boys' and girls' programs.

I was impressed with the Warriors in the second half, and Troiano made all the adjustments he needed to make. Pennsville is a hard-working, earnest team, but outgunned today. They do move the bal pretty well in the half-court set, and Coach Norman Dale would have been a fan of them; I counted 15 passes before they shot on one particular possession.

Other stuff that went down tonight: Williamstown consolidated its Trico Royal supremacy with a win over Cumberland... Penns Grove created more havoc in the Trico Classic with a win over Salem, as did Gloucester by beating Pitman. Looks like Glassboro is back to being the favorite there... Pleasantville took out Mainland. Those girls must be playing a hell of a lot better than they did when I saw them in a blowout loss at Ocean City. Now they just have to make the playoffs... West Deptford won its second straight game (had to give some props to my childhood hometown)... CH East and Washington Township stayed neck and neck in the Oly American. Looks like that's coming down to their second meeting of the year, winner take all... Haddonfield staved off a third straight loss, storming back tobeat Sterling on overtime. The Silver Knights continue to be a hard-luck squad... West Tech won its ninth game of the year, moving to within a win of the playoffs with almost three weks left to the cutoff... Holy Cross clouded the Burlco Patriot with an overtime win over Delran...

One troubling thing that I have yet to follow up on: the score sheet for the Wilson-Eustace game shows only "hurt" next to Ashley Baker's name. I'm almost positive she was fine after the Spirit game, so I'm wondering what might have happened. If it happened today, it was early in the game because she did not score.

I'll be in the office tomorrow chasing down various things and working on the stuff for this weeked, i.e. Player of the Week, notebook, cover story, stats and standings, etc. I'll be back out ther on Thursday, however, for Salem at Pitman. With both teams coming off losses, there should be a sense of urgency in the gym, at the very least. See you there.

CC and BTech

2006-01-16T18:25:00.001-05:00

I'm a little disappointed at not being able to be there for this one, but I have two state-mandated official days (and nights) off a week, and my wife has claimed this one. Taking it back would have been techically possible, but not in my best interest by a long shot.

Anyone actually going to the game is likely to have left home by now, but I figured Al Dyer's comments about the two teams and how the game is likely to play out deserved to be given some kind of forum.

According to the Wilson coach, who has prepared for and played both of these teams in the last few weeks, the game could come down to refereeing. He said that if the game gets the kind of officiating that BT is used to in the north, they could definitely be trouble for CC because they'll try to mug Rashidat out of her game. If the refs call it close, like it usually is down here, CC will win because BT has no straight-up answer for the big girl inside. Also, he said that the Irish will need more than Crew to bring the ball up the floor against their pressure, that Jaz by herself isn't enough to overcome their speed and athleticism. That means Matera and that means Gallagher, I'm guessing, putting the ball on the floor successfully in traffic. If the Irish can avoid fear and hesitation, they can beat the pressure and dominate in half-court sets with team D and Junaid-first O. The Wilson game should have been a nice warm up, as far ad pressure, but the Irish have obviously not yet faced the kind of test they'll get tonight, in a matter of minutes, actually.

In all honesty, I do have a rooting interest for this game, as I'd really like to see the newly-crowned CP No. 1 represent, and I'm always for SJ teams against out-of-area squads. I was disappointed to see Gami get punched in the mouth like they did yesterday by Council Rock North. That was not a superior team, but they were better yesterday. Gami came out flat, and never quite recovered.

Those kids of losses hurt a lot because, in general, I think this area gets disrepected from all sides -- North Jersey and Pennsylvania -- athletically and culturally. And any time one of our teams loses to one of theirs, it's an opportunity lost.

All this is by way of saying Game on, Irish. Red Bank Catholic has one loss, Notre Dame has one loss, Holy Spirit has one loss and St. John Vianney has FIVE. The No. 1 seed and home-court advantage is there for the taking, so this is a good time to cast off the albatross of underachievement.

New C-P T20

2006-01-15T02:19:00.000-05:00

This list is tentative, pending the results of Sunday's five Cougar Classic games. Though I won't go into it now, I've already worked out all the permutations of what could possibly happen on the court, from a Mainalnd win over Heights to Gami losing to Council Rock North. Obviously the Wilson-Spirit game has huge implications, and trust me when I say it's causing some time-crunch consternation on the part of the folks at the C-P office. If Wilson wins -- and I give the Tigers a 50-50 shot -- I haven't decided yet whether I'll move them up to No. 3, where I think they belong, or stick with the process and opt to move Spirit down to No. 5, keeping the undefeated teams together near the top. Of course, if AC beats Boro, that decision gets simple. I'm not saying I have a rooting interest, other than to make my life easier.

Anyway, here's how it stands after Saturday's games, and how it will stand if there are no "upsets" on Sunday:

1. Gami
2. CC
3. HSpirit
4. Boro
5. Wilson
6. AC
7. RV
8. Heights
9. CH East
10. Cumberland
11. OCity
12. Haddonfield
13. Williamstown
14. Washington Twp.
15. Sacred Heart
16. Eustace
17. Paul VI
18. Cherokee
19. Pennsauken
20. Mainland

Almost: Moorestown, Eastern, Gloucester Catholic, Haddon Township, Kingsway, Timber Creek, Collingswood

This week was extraordinarily difficult, thanks to Tuesday's shuffling. A seemingly unprecedented number of ranked teams lost this week, and many of the giant killers went and lost themselves in their next game, complicating things further. Kingsway might have been in with a win over GC, for instance. Many of the teams that made the rankings this week have a loss to an unranked team, but they all have quality victories cancelling those losses out.

Haddonfield was one of the most problematic teams. On a two-game skid, the Haddons still haven't lost to a bad team, and both defeats could be seen as special circumstances. As I wrote a couple posts ago, Haddon Township is one of those throw-out-the-records opponents that always plays the Dawgs close, and Paul VI had its back against the wall playoff-wise. Those factors, coupled with the undeniable weight of victories over ranked teams like Heights, Sacred Heart and Cherry Hill East, kept Haddonfield safely in.

Williamstown was in danger of falling out, but a decisive victory over Sacred Heart on a neutral court kept the Braves afloat. Williamstown beat the Lions, who beat Eastern, wwho has beaten Cherokee, who has beaten Cherry Hill East, who has beaten Williamstown. What a tangled web we weave, but it's a web that caught the Braves before they fell too far.

Eustace was another conundrum. Again, Saturday's game was pivotal because Lazos came back. Much like RV, which played with an ailing Chelsea Cole for the first few weeks of the season, BE had some uncharacteristic losses. Truth to tell, Paul VI's win over Haddonfield was a factor as well, because it made Eustace's win over the Eagles look all the better.

Cherokee made its first appearance in the rankings this week, and that won't change no matter what happens Sunday. Congratulations to the Chiefs on their American-stirring win over East. That result, along with losses by Williamstown, Pitman, and Cinnaminson, means many of the division races in SJ are now a mess, with the notable exception of those in the CAL. Gami, OCity, Spirit and SHeart are all in command of their divisions, but in the western part of the area, only CC, Willingboro, Trenton Catholic and Timber Creek can say the same. And it wouldn't take much for them to fall into disarray, either.

Mainland and Pennsauken make return appearances. Kevin Callahan came back from Thursday's Pennsauken game singing the Indians' praises as loud as he could.

Lastly, Paul VI makes it in this week despite being only 5-5, but I couldn't have kept the Eagles out if I had wanted to, reasonably. They have exactly zero losses to unranked area teams, and a win over Haddonfield sealed the deal.

As I mentioned, I'll be at the Cougar Classic Sunday primarily to cover the Wilson-Spirit showdown, but I'm planning to go and watch a few of the preceding games. they're all interesting matchups, and I can't wait to see how they turn out.

Love & Basketball

2006-01-14T02:56:00.000-05:00

I've done five or six little features on different girls around the area -- on Cannon, Junaid, Mostafa, Piekielski, etc. -- and part of the deal is asking dumb questions about players' favorite foods, music, and movies. And just about every time, the girls mention L&B, a movie I have never seen.

Well, I got in from work at like 1-1:30, and the flick came on cable, so I decided to watch. I'm now sitting here on my couch with the laptop on my lap, tapping out random thoughts:

Nice line: She disses the Clippers, saying "Last time they won, Dr. J was a nurse." Pretty sweet.

There's no way she'd get T'd up just for staring an opposing player down. I'm guessing they're trying to make the point that girls are treated differently, that the bravado boys find commonplace isn't tolerated in the girls' game, but I don't think that's true. Well, maybe in 1987, or whenever this is supposed to be set. I was like 10 years old then.

He's not that good. The same actor was a hotshot tailback in the Program a few years before this, and he was a lot more believable in that role. I wonder if he ever worried about being typecase as a cocky athlete. But in this role, he's not doing it for me. There's no way a dude that small gets to the rim that easy. He's no AI.

I don't get it. I know it's just a movie, but how does she go from not being recruited at all to getting a ride to USC? Not likely. Maybe East Stroudsburg, or Towson State, or Wabash College. Not a Pac-10 program, though.

I think they're setting somebody up for a knee injury. Maybe it's just the fact that I've torn up my knees twice or three times each, and that's the way I always think. I don't know which one is going to get it, but it's a feeling I have.

Uh oh, his mom's a drunk. Or the dad's a womanizer. That's life in the Association, I guess. Even the Clippers have groupies.

Hey, the USC men are playing Temple!! This is the obligatory "she passes him in overall awesomeness" montage. Why do the men play in an arena and the women in what looks a whole lot like a high school gym? I don't know any big-time schools where the women don't play in the same building as the men's team. They may never fill the seats like the men can, but they play on the same court.

She takes a charge to win the game. Nice. Shows the maturation process. It's a lost art. I can't figure out who the opponent is, but the colors suggest Louisiana Tech, which was indeed a huge power back in the late 80's.

Temple wins! If you were here, you'd hear me singing the TU fight song right now.
I'm not feeling all that sorry for Q. As I mentioned above, he never had much game to begin with, and now the spell is broken. On the flipside, I'm now feeling like Monica's the one that's going to get injured.

I feel bad for the PG than Monica went and Wally Pipped. (If you don't understand the reference, just google it.) Some coaches hold to the idea that you can't lose your spot because of injury, but others call those rules off. Personally, I think it doesn't make much sense to worry a player about his or her spot on the team so much that they rush themselves back from injury. I think it's usually better to assure a player that the place will be there when he or she is fully healthy, but not before.

Wow. Q's mom was a groupie too. Now he's gonna declare for the draft. I'm thinking bad idea. Ever since the plays of Sophocles and before that, pride has never been rewarded in any moive or play I've ever seen. I'm guessing the moral of this film isn't going to be, "School is for suckers."

The guys in Q's room are playing a decidedly old-school video game, and now Q is stepping out on Monica. That's pretty cold. He isn't even trying to hide it. I've long since lost my patience with him. I'm not really understanding why she loves him, to be honest. His game is his only redeeming quality, so far as I can see, and if that's why she likes him then she's just the same any everybody else.

The commercials have been on for like 40 minutes.

So now it's 1993, and Monica is playing in Europe. I guess she didn't make the 1992 Olympic team, or they would have shown us that.

Oh look, it's Wally Pipp. A loser again, this time for some Italian team. Monica's lonely and Q's a scrub. Whoops, it is him with the knee injury. His mom cut her hair, he hasn't see his dad in five years and it's a torn ACL. I'm surprised. I really thought it was going to be Monica who blew out a knee.

She's back. With flowers. This actress has done a good job affecting the growth of the character. She seemed like a high schooler when she was in high school, and now she seems like a self-actualized adult. It's a subtle progression, but nicely done. The actor playing Q made no such arc, but then again, I think that's sort of the point of the character. He doesn't grow up.

And in walks the obligatory chicken-headed fiance, wiggling that ring finger. Monica is disappointed, but I'm not. He's not worth it.

Here's the mom-to-Monica talk: "You never appreciated me." "You sold yourself out." Ouch, mom sluggs her. "You never came and watched me play." "I always thought you were pretty."

Now Monica's working in the bank, and Q is rehabbing. I can tell you from real experience that rehabbing an ACL tear is painful business. The ache is nauseating sometimes, especially in the weeks right after the inury. Every time you twist it just barely wrong, you could go blind it hurts so bad.

Now where's the WNBA in all this? Did that not start until 1996? Maybe that's what happens at the end of the movie, the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. I remember the league started up on the heels of some Olympics or other, and I thought it was Barcelona but I guess it was Atlanta. That would make sense, since I know Rebecca Lobo was in the first draft class, and she was a junior or a senior at UConn when I started as a freshman at the University of Missouri, in 94-95. On a related topic, how much does it suck that Philly doesn't have a WNBA franchise? This must be the biggest market in the country without a team, unless Chicago doesn't have one either. Off hand, I can't think of the team's name, if they do.

She's loved him since she was 11, and it just won't go away. She should see a doctor about that.

One-on-one for your heart. Cute.

So do they play with a women's ball or a men's? I can't tell. He's not moving all that well. It's game point and she misses a layup. He pulls a spin move and wins the game with what should have been an called an offensive foul. She had position.

Double or nothing? Aw. The chicken-headed stweardess is benched.

Monica Wright-McCall. Clever. Sitting right there next to Lisa Leslie. And courtside baby makes three. I figured she'd finish in the WNBA. We never find out if he made it back from the knee injury or not. I'm guessing no. He was talking about going back to school, so maybe he lacked the desire. It's hard enough for stars to overcome that sort of thing, let alone a scrub who isn't getting any help from anybody.

So that's the end of the flick. Not bad. I guess I can see why its appeal to so many players in that it's one of the few sports movies I can think of that's skewed even a mildly a "chick flick." Most of them align themselves more closely with war movies than romances. Plus, the main characters in the movie harbor and live the same dreams that most young players do, of recruitment, college glory and a place in the pros.

I will say that they made it all look way too easy. When they were 11, they just said, "Im going to be a great baskebtall player." They weren't partcularly good when they were 11 -- or at least he wasn't -- and they made it seem like desire was all that the kids needed. For a more truthful account, I'd refer anyone to one of my favorite movies, Hoop Dreams. Of course, that one's lacking most of the romantic storyline.

Delran 39, Cinnaminson 34

2006-01-13T23:09:00.000-05:00

And then there were four.

Gami, Catholic, Spirit and Boro are the last four undefeated teams standing in SJ right now, and all of them face decent tests this weekend at the Cougar Classic. Cinnaminson put up a good fight earlier this evening, but much like Haddonfield on Tuesday, it just wasn't their night. Teams that rely on shooting are especially susceptible to the bad night, whereas balanced teams, and squads built on defense and rebounding, can usually fend off the cold streaks a little better.

I was impressed with both teams tonight, espcially on the defensive side of the ball. Cinnaminson PG Colleen Gannon reminded me of her older sister Cait, especially with the quickness of her hands. Ally Rodolico had a great game for the Bears, doing a little bit of everything. I know she's their best player, or pretty close to it, but it seemed like it could be anybody on either team on any night. I love watching those kinds of teams play, because they play without fear. When a team has a star or two, the pecking order tends to be very rigid, and the role players seem like they're afraid to take big shots. Every member of the two squads I saw tonight will probably have the ball for a big moment this season. Tonight it was Rodolico and Caitlyn Simmons for Delran. Tomorrow it'll be somebody else.

I talked with Holy Cross coach Fred Phillips before the game, and I'd like to thank him for shedding light on the situation after the game I saw against Eustace. Suffice it to say, HC has some of the same issues that plague every HS basketball program in existence. I look forward to seeing the Lancers play again soon, and wish them the best of luck against the aforementioned Bears on Tuesday.

Saturday is my day to toil away in the office, mostly typing in wrestling results, so I won't be out there covering any of the many terrific games. I'm a little sad about that, but I can't be everywhere. I'll be at the Cougar Classic on Sunday, covering Wilson-Spirit, and I'll probably come early to watch another game or two.

See you there.

Upset Tuesday, and the lovely Colonial

2006-01-13T16:10:00.000-05:00

My sister claimed I apologized too much in my boys' soccer blog posts, and since pretty much all of those apologies were for missing days, I'm not going to start that again this time. Y'all will just have to trust that I was just too busy with other girls' basketball-related stuff.

Anyway, Tuesday turned into Super Tuesday with the upsets, didn't it? I know that BE was without Lazos, but still, that margin to Pennsauken didn't make that much sense. Then the Indians go and validate that win by spanking Eastern last night and Cherokee takes out Cherry Hill East. Now there are zero undefeated teams left in the Olynpic American, East is 3-1, Washington Township is 2-1, and Pennsauken, Cherokee and Eastern are all 2-2. Call me crazy, but I think 7-3 is going to be enough to win that division, and I'd be more amused than shocked if 6-4 turned the trick.

The other race to destabilize on Tuesday was the ever-riveting Colonial. That group of teams may well not be as strong as they have been in the past -- certainly the late 1990s were a Colonial renaissance that may never occur again -- but the intensity never diminishes. Tom Mulligan, architect of the upset over Haddonfield that threw a spotlight on this chaos, made an apt comparison, I think, when he likened the Colonial to the Philadelphia Big Five in college basketball.

A little story: When I was at Temple, I covered what may have been John Chaney's most talented team, the 1999-2000 squad led by PG Pepe Sanchez, with Quincy Wadley at SG, Mark Karcher at SF, Lamont Barnes at PF, Kevin Lyde at center, and Lynn Greer coming off the bench as the sixth man. This is a team that was slaughtering opponents by 30 and making it look easy, holding them under 40 points most of the time. They went into top-ranked and undefeated Cincinnati, which featured future NBA lottery picks Kenyon Martin and DeMarr Johnson, and kicked the crap out of the Bearcats in February. So the tournament season is coming, the top teams are dropping like flies and it seems like the Owls are a shoe-in for a No. 1 seed as long as they hold serve. Well, the last game of the regular season was against St. Joe's at the Palestra, and the Hawks wouldn't get Jameer until the next season. They were a nice team, led by Marvin O'Connor, but they were an NIT team and Temple had Final Four expectations.

Didn't matter. Temple played as hard as I've seen them play, but there was just no way talent was going to decide that game. St. Joe won in overtime. The Owls went on to win the A-10 tournament, winning the final by like 35, but the NCAA Tournament committee -- much like the NJSIAA seeded process -- didn't believe in the magic of rivalry games. All they saw was St. Joe's middling RPI number, and that was enough to drop Temple to a No. 2 seed and send them to Buffalo, instead of giving them a No. 1 and sending them someplace nicer. Buffalo is my bad-luck city and has been since I was swimming invitational meets there as a high schooler, and that luck held true. Temple was beaten in the second round by Seton Hall, in overtime.

Now, I won't pretend that a girls' basketball game between Haddonfield and Haddon Township is as important as all that, or that the gap between those two teams, talent-wise, is near as big as it was between TU and SJU back then, but that stuff happens all the time when players and coaches know each other so well that there are no shortcuts. Those teams in the Colonial can't outthink each other, and nobody's going to be impressed with anybody's win-loss record because they know each other better. I think it allows the teams to play loose, and that's why crazy stuff tends to happen.

To some extent, most divisions have a little bit of this element working, but the Colonial is on a level. I think it's because, like the Philly Big 5, it's geography-based, with bordering towns involved every night. In the Olympic or the Burlco or CAL or the Trico, you may drive 30-40 minutes to play a division opponent. And some of the Colonial schools aren't so close, but you can live in Haddon Township and WALK to three opponents' home gyms in under 30 minutes. Hop on your bike and you could add a few more (as an aside, I always thought Gloucester and Gloucester Catholic would be great Colonial schools, but that will never happen). Proximity makes a difference, not just because it brings more folks out but because the players have been mixing it up since they were like three years old. And the size of the schools dictates that many of the kids face each other in at least two, and sometimes even three seasons.

As time goes by, I understand my soft spot for the Colonial better and better, because it's almost a nostalgic version of high school sports. The way things used to be everywhere.

New C-P T20

2006-01-07T21:25:00.000-05:00

No preamble this time. Without further ado:

1. Gami
2. CC
3. Spirit
4. Boro
5. Haddons
6. Wilson
7. AC
8. CH East
9. RV
10. Heights
11. Eustace
12. Williamstown
13. Eastern
14. Sacred Heart
15. Wash. Twp.
16. Cumberland
17. OCity
18. Timber Creek
19. Cinnaminson
20. Pitman

Almost: Moorestown, Cherokee, Paul VI, EHT, Holy Cross, Mainland, Hammonton, Pennsauken, Kingsway

I decided to take as much pressure as possible off Wilson and give them the underdog, hunter role they love so much, at least as far as the rankings are concerned. I don't think they're going to easily escape the target that comes with being the TOC winner, but at least they can go into the Spirit game with a lower rank.

This is the first week of the season in which the rankings include all the remaining undefeated teams, Pitman passed its Glassboro test to make it in at No. 20.

The big mover, of course, was Timber Creek, which moved down. I know this team is very capable. In fact, I believe they were the near equal of Willingboro when I saw them play over the holidays, but a loss to 2-5 Clearview is tough to swallow. My faith in the Chargers kept them in the T20, but they're going to have to start winning games to stay there.

The new teams are Ocean City (which got some strategic lobbying from an "unbiased" relative of mine, not that they needed it this week), Eastern, and the aforementioned Panthers of Pitman. Eastern has supplanted Pennsauken as the out-of-the-blue Olympic American contender, thanks to a one-point victory over Cherokee this week. The closest thing to a guaranteed win in that division is Lenape, and they were supposed to be the best team there. I understand that Brooke Keenan isn't playing, but it still goes to show how balanced -- and therefore how exciting -- that division race is; a team can lose one borderline all-star and go from the top to the bottom.

I didn't go out to cover a game today, but I was at the Haddonfield-Collingswood boys' game for about three quarters on another story. Man, that place was jammed. Talking to Nancy O'Neill the night before, I had been wishing that those two school had scheduled a boy-girl doubleheader for today, but after seeing the crowd at Collingswood's gym, I thought, "Maybe next year, when Brian Zoubek's taken his act to Cameron Indoor."

Boy-girl doubleheaders are a great idea, especially for the girls' teams, because it gets more people out to see both games. Every time I've been to a girls' game that goes on just before a big-time boys' game, the girls players raise their level of play to meet the heightened atmosphere. The problem, at least in the regular season, is the JV teams, since there are always a few players who split time between varsity and JV. But this shouldn't be a problem on a Saturday. Simply shedule the girls' JV at 10, the girls' varsity at 12, the boys varsity at 2 and the boys' JV at 4. Those who want it can have a quadruple header of high school basketball, and plenty of people get the benefit of the varsity boy-girl. The only danger is that so many girls' fans stay that some boys' fans get left out in the cold, but that's just more incentive for all the fans to come watch both games.

It would have been a nightmare today, but in general I think it's something schools should do more of. I know it's a pain in the ass, but there's a solid number of families out there with kids on both teams, who never get to see them play on the same day. Plus I know the Collingswood girls were disappointed at not getting to see the big game today.

Anyway, I've been in the office all day long and I'm tired, so I'll see y'all later.

Gami 56, AC 51

2006-01-06T22:34:00.000-05:00

Wow. Two good games in a row. I'm probably going to have to do three or four blowouts' worth of pennance for these indulgences.

Having never covered a game at Absegami before, I was impressed at the size of the gym. I wonder what it would be like with all the bleachers pulled out and full, or if it ever gets like that. Maybe for wrestling meets. It has some kind of old school, shadowy quality that I can't put my finger on but that I enjoyed. It reminded me of the gyms I'd watch older relative play in when I was little, or maybe just the size of it made me remember being small. I'm sure there are bigger gyms out there -- Cherry Hill East, Timber Creek and Holy Spirit spring to mind as possibilities -- but they're all so well-lit that some of the effect seems lost.

Anyway, this is the second game in a row where I saw Gami struggle to get it rolling offensively. The last time was against CB East at the Boardwalk Classic, and that team was definitely trying to slow the Braves down. Today, I wouldn't say AC was looking for a half-court game at all, but Gami just couldn't figure out how to effectively attack the Vikings' zone. It might have helped if early three-footers had gone down, but once that confidence was lost in the post, Gami's height advantage -- which was huge -- seemed to matter less and less.

Tasha Cannon is, of course, awesome, even though she didn't set the world on fire stat-wise today. She was the best player on the floor, clearly, and a real factor on the boards despite giving up as many as 10 inches in height. She's obviously a Player of the Year candidate, though it's way early to be talking about that. I made the mistake during the boys' soccer season of laying out the POY discussion after about a month, just to make things interesting, and I paid for it for like three weeks. So I'll talk about it in another month or so.

I was impressed with te AC supporting cast in the second half, especially Aliyah Montague and Ashley Ingram. If the Vikes had shot the ball in the first half like they did in the second, it might have been Gami playing catchup the whole game. But that's always easy to say.

There weren't too many upsets waiting for me when I got back to the office. EHT beat Hammonton, but EHT is a team I can't figure out. Lose to OC, then beat OC. Beat Wildwood Catholic by 30 but lose to Lower Cape May by 12. This last bit of info is just the latest in the roller coaster. I'm tempted to throw them in the rankings at No. 20 and see what happens, but there are probably more consistent teams out there. OC will probably go in, however, especially since they play AC on Monday. That should be nice.

That's it for now. I'm spending the afternoon in the office tomorrow, catching up on some stuff. I'll try to check in during.

CC 73, Wilson 70

2006-01-06T02:16:00.000-05:00

I've got to keep this monumentally short because it's like 2 a.m. and I still have stuff to do before I can go to sleep. But I needed to make sure to say that this afternoon's game was the best I've seen so far this season.

Some revelations:

Shinaa Cross is a hell of a player. She really came into her own today and hit some heavy shots down the stretch. Against one of the top backcourts in the state, she more than held her own. Dyer attributed much of the difference to making Cross the point and moving Baker to the 2. That puts the ball in Cross' hands pretty much every possession. Good move today. I can't wait to see more from her.

The third quarter was a thing of beauty, which is really something in the world of girls' basketball. I counted a total of 22 points in one 2:23 stretch in which I also counted two, maybe three very quick empty possessions.

Rashidat is a little quicker than the last time I saw her play, her sophomore year. She actually put the ball on the floor a couple times today, to break the Wilson pressure. I'm not saying it was an unmitigated success, but she had a nice game. I recorded seven blocks in my notes, but the possibility remains that there were more.

Jasmine Crew has certainly figured out the PG position. When I saw her at Spirit last year, she was obviously playing alongside Jordan Sykes, and therefore was more in the SG role. I don't know if she took a single three today, choosing to penetrate and either take a 12-footer or dish to somebody wide open. It was a masterful performance, but it also made me wonder whether there will every come a game when she and Matera both catch fire at the same time. Looking back at the box scores, I don't think it's happened yet. Matera is too good a player to be boxed up in the shooter's role, but with Crew taking such good care of the point, it would be easy for her to just sit down on the wing and wait for jumpers to come her way. The stretched where CC got in trouble today were the ones where they stood around and didn't play aggressively. Against Gami, both of those guards are going to have to make the Braves pay because Junaid isn't going to have whole lot of room in the lane.

That's all I have time for right now. I'll try to get some more in later. I know I've written that like five straight times and it's never happened, but this has been -- and continues to be -- a berzerk week.

But it's almost over. And then I can sleep.

Gloucester beats Wildwood

2006-01-03T21:41:00.000-05:00

I was at this game not to cover it -- which was good because bumper-to-bumper traffic on Route 130 got me there with a minute left in the first half -- but to work on a feature for later in the week. Nevertheless, it was one of the better games that I've seen this season. This must, MUST have been Gloucester's best game of the season. The Lions were down by 10 when I got there and went on like a 30-12 run fueled by pressure defense and great shooting. Chelsea Connor blocked like five shots, DJ Havers had an unstoppable three minutes and the role players all hit big shots.

But I was really taken with number 10, the Gloucester point guard. I don't know what her name is, but I'll figure it out soon. The word's tenacity, I think, or maybe it's intensity or temerity, but she had it. I only saw her shoot once or twice from the field and it wasn't particularly pretty, but I started out at Temple covering a sterling silver game manager who couldn't shoot all that well named Pepe Sanchez, and I'm partial to that type of player. In girls' basketball, especially in close games, those sorts of guards are worth their weight in gold. Plus she looked real tough.

The Trico Classic continues to get crazier and crazier. I think everybody's got a division loss now that Wildwood and Glassboro have lost (the Bulldogs went down to Pitman). So, before the season, I figured Glassboro, Salem, Wildwood and Gloucester would slug it out, but now Penns Grove and Pitman have both upset that order, and there was a close shave back there with Clayton too.

Actually the Classic isn't the only crazy division. Cherokee handed Pennsauken its first loss tonight, and Eastern laid the smack down on Lenape. Crazy. Lower Cape May beat EHT, which beat Ocean City last week, which beat Mainland today. That's pretty crazy too, in a way. Mainland, LCM and Oakcrest are all average or better teams, but it looks like the CAL American II is down to OC and Hammonton for now. Whoever comes out of there could have a few division losses, though.

I didn't cover a game today because I'm taking a couple of days to work on the final chapter of a staff-wide book on South Jersey Eagles fans, but I'll be back out there on Thursday for CC-Wilson. See you in on Federal Street.

New C-P T20

2006-01-01T19:37:00.000-05:00

I've been sick these last few days, so I haven't been able to post at all. I'll try to get to some of the other stuff that went on in the interim, but the season lurches on so I can't promise anything. Anyway, here's the new rankings:

1. Gami
2. CCatholic
3. Wilson
4. Spirit
5. Willingboro
6. Haddonfield
7. Williamstown
8. Timber Creek
9. Atlantic City
10. Washington Twp
11. Cherry Hill East
12. Rancocas Valley
13. Haddon Heights
14. Bishop Eustace
15. Sacred Heart
16. Mainland
17. Pennsauken
18. Cumberland
19. Hammonton
20. Cinnaminson

Almost: Cherokee, EHT, OC, Lenape, Paul VI, Pitman

Now, I oroginally had Trenton Catholic ranked, but I was informed by an editor that we don't cover the Iron Mikes and they can't be ranked. Which is strange because they play in the Burlington County League. The school is not geographically in the traditional seven-county South Jersey area, but neither is anothe Burlco League school, New Egypt, which spent all fall ranking in field hockey. In any case, for those who wondered why TCath was missing (and will apparently continue to go missing) that's the reason. Contact my bosses if you disagree.

As expected, the T20 underwent a major overhaul since opening night. Most of the changes are self-explanatory to anything who was paying attention, and I don't have the time or the energy (still have some flu-like symptoms) to go through them all, so suffice it to say the decisions were as tough as ever. It probably would have helped to have another set of rankings before the holiday tournaments, since there was still a certain sense of guesswork going on. The toughest decision was probably the one that left both Cherokee and Lenape on the outside again, and I expect one or both of those teams to earn their way in eventually. But for both those squads, they had a loss too many this time around.

There are plenty of big games coming up this week, none bigger than Wilson-Catholic on Thursday, the subject of the column in Monday's edition of the C-P. Wilson actually has a bear of a week, with Paul VI on Tuesday, CC on Thursday and two-time defending Group 1 state champ Bloomfield Tech on Saturday. Then the Tigers play Holy Spirit next week at the Cougar Classic, so good luck to them, and they get some points for sheer fearlessness. Should be fun.

Correction

2005-12-29T05:01:00.000-05:00

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

2005-12-28T22:04:00.000-05:00

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

2005-12-25T03:12:00.000-05:00

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

2005-12-22T22:49:00.000-05:00

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

2005-12-21T16:52:00.000-05:00

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

2005-12-20T23:13:00.000-05:00

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

2005-12-20T13:46:00.000-05:00

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

2005-12-19T21:56:00.000-05:00

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

2005-12-18T20:43:00.000-05:00

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

2005-12-17T18:30:00.000-05:00

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

2005-12-16T23:12:00.000-05:00

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

2005-12-15T22:58:00.000-05:00

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

2005-12-15T16:28:00.000-05:00

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

2005-12-14T19:10:00.000-05:00

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

2005-12-14T02:48:00.000-05:00

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

2005-12-09T23:59:00.000-05:00

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...

2005-12-06T03:01:00.000-05:00

... 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.

First day of practice

2005-11-25T17:31:00.000-05:00

I still have no idea if I'm going to be covering girls' basketball this season, but I'm just going to proceed as if I will be until I find out differently.

I did a story today, for Saturday's C-P edition, about the first day of winter practice and the reporting brought me to Camden Catholic, a real contender for a preseason No. 1 ranking. I don't know exactly what the Irish's starting five will look like, but there aren't many players better than Junaid, Crews and Matera. Actually, three bona fide stars is probably the limit, because there's usually not enough ball for four. When you have star players like that, simple, tenacious-minded athletes like Katie Gallagher and Steph Sharpe become even more valuable than another slick baller would be.

Ra is going to get her touches, and Crew is going to have to learn to be more of a distributor. But if she does, all she needs to do is wait for the D to collapse and wait for the kickout. The girl can hit an open jumper, no doubt. Matera already knows how to play with stars. She's always had either Ra or Killion there, but it will be interesting to see how she and Crew sort out the PG/SG division.

It seems like the first day of winter practice is more exciting than the others are. I think the fall practice starts before classes do, in the summer, so kids are bummed about summer being over. And by the time spring rolls around, everybody's already got the sports hangover that tends to last all the way through June. Winter is just an explosion. It seems like there's so little time to cut down to 12, learn the offense and defense and then find some chemistry before the season starts that there's an urgency right from the start.

It also gives the athletes in the state a whole other perception of Black Friday than other kids.

Hello SJ

2005-11-21T00:00:00.000-05:00

This is the unofficial home of the C-P's coverage of SJ high school girls' basketball. This blog will feature all the rumor, opinion, speculation and analysis that would never make it past the newspaper's copy editors and into print even if there was all the space in the world. But this is also a home for you.

One of the most valuable aspects of the blogosphere is its easy ability for dialogue. No one reporter can cover a community as large as yours without help. I'm going to make plenty of mistakes, and I'm going to apologize right now for not being everywhere at once, but with some communication the season can be a tremendous one for everyone involved. This blog is my open-door policy on the comments, questions and suggestions of the SJ girls' basketball community, and I invite you to use it in any way you choose. In two full seasons blogging on boys' soccer, I've probably only deleted one or two particularly abusive comments out of thousands that ran the entire gamut.

For an example of the kind of thing that might show up in this space, I refer you to the link above, which directs the browser to cpsoccer.ebloggy.com, the unofficial home of SJ high school boys' soccer. Some of you may be familiar with it, most probably are not.

The only other thing I'd say at this point -- besides wishing everyone a healthy and successful season -- is that I tend to take players and coaches a lot more seriously than I do parents. I don't mean to diminish the roles of moms and dads in their kids' lives and I do welcome any and all participation, but a little goes a long way.

I feel like I've heard it all from parents before, but high school kids surprise me practically every day.

Anyway, that;s it for now. Check back here for more as the season goes on, and I'll see you at the gym.