The girls’ basketball team will face Lawrenceville for the crown on Saturday.
By: Neil Hay
The Peddie girls’ basketball team is one game away from another state Prep A championship.
What else is new?
The Falcons moved into tomorrow’s finals against the Lawrenceville with an easy 71-25 win over Blair Wednesday afternoon at Rutgers Prep. During the regular season, the locals defeated the Bucs by a 71-23 score.
The top-seeded Falcons got 25 points from Christina Campion, and 10 apiece from Jen Stever and Crystal Goring, to blow out the Bucs, the tourney’s fourth seed.
Peddie jumped out to a 25-6 lead after the first period of play. The Bucs (11-10) made a run in the second quarter, but at the half the locals led, 37-16. The second half was all Peddie, 34-9.
"We were pleased with how we played," said Coach Sean Casey, whose team will be gunning for its seventh straight state title.
"This past weekend we didn’t play our best basketball. (Against Blair) the kids passed the ball very well. The kids really shared the ball."
In the win the Falcons rang up a "pretty remarkable" 24 assists, including eight by Kindyll Dorsey.
At the other end of the floor, "The kids played very good defense. They applied a lot of pressure," said Casey.
Now 20-2, the Falcons will go for number twenty-one against Lawrenceville. The game will be played at Hun. Peddie has already defeated Lawrenceville this season.
Even on a day that they did not play their best, the Peddie girls’ team was still too tough to handle for host Hill Sunday in the finals of the Mid-Atlantic Prep League tournament.
Peddie won its third straight MAPL tournament with a 53-40 win over Hill. The Falcons have yet to lose a basketball game to a MAPL opponent since the inception of the league four years ago.
In the semifinals on Saturday, the Falcons defeated Hun, 65-36. Ahead 17-14 at the end of the first period, Peddie outscored Hun (now 16-8) by a combined 33-8 over the next two quarters to quiet Hun’s upset bid.
Dorsey netted 12 points, Whitney Douthett and Bridgette Mitchell eight apiece, Goring tallied 13, and Campion tossed in 14 to put down the Raiders.
The next afternoon it was business as usual as the top-seeded Falcons defeated Hill, the tourney’s second seed. Peddie had two big quarters, the first (16-7) and third (17-6) to pull away. A solid 16-10 fourth quarter for Hill only made the final score more respectable.
"We played okay. It was not our best basketball of the season, but we managed to get it done. There were some distractions because of the weather. I told the girls not to take anything for granted. Hill (now 18-7) is a pretty good team."
Campion scored 19 points and was named the tournament’s most outstanding player. Mitchell ("She played well") added 18. Asked about positives in the game from a Peddie point of view, Casey replied, "The kids made some plays. They didn’t play with the consistency I’ve grown accustomed to. We played well in spurts. The defense was solid."
Already a 1,000-point scorer that has topped Jenna Graber’s record for scoring by a girls’ player at the school, Campion has one more mark to shoot for in Saturday’s championship game. Campion needs 20 points to break the all-time school scoring mark, set by E. Mount Norris. Set in 1925, the current record is 1,595 points.

