Girls basketball
By: Jim Green
Lawrence High School girls basketball coach Gregg Zenerovitz could have swallowed his team’s second straight loss if he felt his players had decided the outcome.
But two questionable calls in the final minute Tuesday left the Cardinals with a 42-39 loss at Steinert. Lawrence was coming off a 62-60 defeat at Hightstown on Friday night.
"It’s a shame it came down to it (the officiating)," Zenerovitz said of the Cardinals’ loss to Steinert. "I was real proud of the way we played."
The first questionable call came with 15.2 seconds left, as a loose ball was ruled out of bounds off Cardinals forward Theresa Gregory. The second was a flagrant foul on Lawrence guard Christine Rivera with 5.1 seconds remaining that gave Steinert leading by one point two foul shots and the ball.
The loss drops Lawrence to 4-4 overall and 2-3 in the Colonial Valley Conference. The Cardinals had won three straight prior to their two-game skid.
Steinert, meanwhile, used its trademark tight defense to win its fourth in row, improving to 8-2 on the season. The Spartans have yet to surrender 50 points in a game.
"Steinert plays great defense," Zenerovitz said. "We had been averaging in the upper-50’s in points."
Lawrence’s 39 points tied its season-low, and only one Cardinal senior point guard Tashema Whittaker reached double-figures. Whittaker netted 11 points, while the Cardinals’ leading scorer, Gregory, was limited to five.
Despite their offensive struggles, the Cardinals used tough defense of their own to keep the game close. With Whittaker and Gregory struggling early, junior forward Arianna Brame stepped up, netting six points to help the Cards open an 11-4 lead.
But Steinert scored the last two buckets of the first, pulling within three points heading into the second period. With 5:40 to play before halftime, junior forward Jerilyn Krawczyk nailed a long-range jumper to give Lawrence a 15-10 lead.
Steinert made another quarter-ending run, outscoring the Cardinals 7-2 to force a 17-17 halftime-tie.
"Give our girls credit for playing tough," Zenerovitz said. "This is one of the better teams in the conference, and we hung right with them."
The Cardinals seemed to take control of the game in the third quarter. After Steinert opened a 20-17 lead, Whittaker sparked a 13-3 run that put the Cardinals up 30-23 heading into the final period.
Whittaker connected on a 3-pointer and split a Steinert double-team with a nice floating jumper during the run.
"Good players do that (step up)," Zenerovitz said. "She wasn’t afraid to do that."
But Steinert used its full-court press to rattle Lawrence in the fourth quarter, forcing the Cardinals to commit several turnovers. The Spartans went on a 14-4 run to pull ahead 37-34 with three minutes left.
A traditional three-point play by Lawrence forward Tiffany Lewis tied the score, but Steinert answered with a three-point play of its own to go up 40-37 with 53.4 seconds remaining.
"We lost a little bit of composure," Zenerovitz said of his team’s fourth-quarter struggles. "We’ve been pressed many times. This was the first time we had turnovers."
Whittaker connected on two foul shots to close the gap to one point with 20.4 seconds left. Lawrence then rebounded a Steinert miss and came down the floor with one last chance to pull the game out.
However, a Lewis miss was followed by the out-of-bounds call on Gregory, giving the Spartans possession. Rivera, intentionally fouling to stop the clock, was then called for a flagrant foul.
"We did some nice things," Zenerovitz said. "It’s a shame they (the officials) took the ball out of the girls’ hands at the end."

