By: Carolyn M. Hartko
When the old British comedy team of Monty Python couldn’t think of a decent segue between skits on their 1970’s era TV show, one of them would simply come out and announce, "And now for something completely different."
That line could have announced the beginning of Wednesday night’s girls’ basketball game at Monroe Township High School between the Lady Falcons and the visiting North Stars of Nottingham. For one thing, Nottingham is not exactly a known quantity around Middlesex County courts. For another, the Falcons have been so depleted by illness and injuries that there have been a lot of new faces in varsity jerseys the past few games.
The North Stars brought height, one very talented player, and a good shooting touch with them to Monroe. Nottingham used a nine-point run early in the game to build a first quarter lead of 20-6, and the Falcons never recovered. At the end, it was visitors 53, home team 33. The victory put the Stars even at 9-9 while Monroe fell to 8-12.
"I want to give them their due, because they beat us, and they beat us soundly," Falcon head coach John Donza said. "But you didn’t see the real Monroe team tonight. Especially in the first quarter. The second quarter, we played them even. And then we went through our third quarter blues again."
The visitors were led by point guard Vicki Jenkins who poured in a game-high 22 points. Freshman Alison Baumlin paced the Falcons with 14 points and 10 rebounds. But for the most part, the Falcons couldn’t bank their shots. They hit just 10 of 59 attempts from the floor (17 percent and 10 of 29 from the free throw line (34 percent). Monroe had the bonus light on for them the whole second quarter, and could have reaped a large benefit from the double bonus for the last six minutes in the fourth period.
"The fact is, you can’t win when you miss 20 foul shots," Donza said. "I told them at the beginning of the season, this is not rocket science and it’s not brain surgery. You hit your foul shots, you hit your lay-ups and you play defense, and you’re in every game."
The Falcons were also minus some key players, two of them among the taller members of the team. Starting forward Lindsay Jones was on crutches, but Donza hopes to have her back in time for the start of the county tournament next week. Another starting forward, Shannon McNamara, was sent home from school on Wednesday with flu-like symptoms. And reserve ball-handler Danielle Payne is gone for the season. She suffered a broken ankle in the Jan. 23 game at Spotswood.
The latter injury is also of concern for Falcon softball fans, as Payne is one of the team’s top players.
In addition, the remaining original starters, Baumlin, Tara Lange and Lisa Gaydas, are all playing hurt. That’s not a great position to be as a team is heading into post-season play. The Falcons have one more game on their regular schedule, an non-division match at 1 p.m. at J.F. Kennedy this coming Saturday.
The Falcons did not make the states this year, but will enter the Greater Middlesex Conference Tournament. The seeding for that tourney takes place on Sunday, and the games begin on Monday. Donza knows his team will have a tough time in the counties this year, but the Falcons are still looking forward to the chance to meet a different team, or perhaps post an upset.
"To me, (the GMCT) is a gravy type of thing," the coach said. "I want the girls to play well. We got eliminated last year by Spotswood, and Spotswood could be our draw again. But we finished 8-8 in our division. That’s quite a difference from 3-13 last year. And every non-division game we played was stiff competition. That will help the girls, but they want to see wins."
THROW-INS: Two JV players pulled up to varsity to cover for injuries are Emma Bossard and Kristen Tompkins. The latter scored her first varsity points on Wednesday when she drained a trey mid-way through the fourth quarter.
