Weaver stars in final home game
By: John E. Powers
For the last home game of her senior year, Diana Weaver got just about everything she wanted. The Manville High School girls’ basketball team won because of it.
The Lady Mustangs wiped out a nine-point half-time deficit last Friday night and went on to beat North Plainfield 35-27 to finish the regular season with a 12-10 record. The Lady Mustangs will play an opening-round Central Jersey Group 1 game at Granville Charter Tuesday afternoon. North Plainfield fell to 14-7.
If the Lady Mustangs can play the way they did last Friday night, MHS hoop fans should be in store for a very interesting tournament run.
The Lady Mustangs, beaten by North Plainfield 42-34 in the Mountain Valley Conference rivals’ first game, outscored the Canucks 23-6 in the second half to win.
Weaver, in the words of Manville High head coach Paul Lenihan, "was fabulous."
Her numbers definitely reflected it. She scored five points, pulled down 10 rebounds, made five assists and had five steals. A number that did not show up on her line in the boxscore was the most important.
When junior center Amy Ortman went to the bench very early in the second quarter with her fourth foul, Lenihan put Weaver on Canuck center Beth Tirrell, who had hurt Manville with a 24-point, 11-rebound game in the previous meeting.
"We were all kind of scared when she went out, but we got it together and came together as a team,” Weaver said.
Weaver led by example in calming those concerns. This time around, Tirrell finished with 13 points, but all 13 came in the first half. Weaver blanked Tirrell after the break.
"I almost had a tear in my eye," Weaver said. "This was a very good last home game. We were confident we could do it."
Lenihan was not just concerned with Tirrell. Manville had to find a way to also silence sophomore forward Brianna Nieves.
Lenihan went to a box-in-one on Nieves, while Weaver was told to shadow Tirrell.
"Diana had a fabulous game," Lenihan said. "We had to stop No. 50 (Nieves). Usually Diana serves as something of a role player, but tonight, she ended up playing the best offensive player on the team."
During their half-time break, Lenihan told his team not to panic and just chip away. The chipping began with junior Heather Mathieu’s 3-pointer that cut the Canuck lead to 21-15. Then, Renee Giraldi made a steal and fed the ball to a streaking Lisa Lavenia, who converted on a lay-up to cut it to four.
North Plainfield didn’t score its first basket of the second half until there was just 1:03 left in the third quarter. But Lavenia, who scored all 10 of her points in the second half, nailed a jumper with four seconds left in the third quarter to make it 23-19.
Another Mathieu basket cut the lead to 23-21 before Nieves scored to make it 25-21. But Weaver fed Mathieu, who scored again, cutting it back to two. Giraldi converted a 3-point play with 5:31 left in regulation to give Manville a 26-25 lead. Another Lavenia basket made it 28-25 before Weaver found Rachel Rivera wide-open under the basket for another hoop and a 30-25 lead.
Lavenia hit two foul shots with 40 seconds left after North Plainfield scored to make it 32-27. A Giraldi foul shot followed by two Lavenia free throws to put it away with 13 seconds left.
"We just told the kids that we were going to chip away at it a little at a time," Lenihan said. "We were not going to rush anything. We were going to run our offense and be patient. It was a great, great win."
The night’s prospects looked dim when Ortman went out with her fourth personal. She never returned. The game was tied at 9-9 when Ortman left, but North Plainfield finished the first half with a 12-3 run.
That all changed in the second half, when the Lady Mustangs and their senior forward, Weaver, made sure to leave their regular season on a memorable note.