Girls basketball
By: John E. Powers
What a week.
The Hopewell Valley Central High School girls basketball team experienced a week of extremes last week, winning two of three games.
First was a 55-12 blowout win against Princeton on Friday, then a four-overtime, 63-58 loss at Montgomery followed with an impressive 56-42 win at Hamilton on Tuesday night.
"We had to come back and play a game, that was it," Hopewell Valley coach John McGinley said. "We talked about Saturday. It was a great game overall, but we had to play the next game and move on."
Hamilton, 7-7, was a club desperately needing a win to give itself a cushion with the sectional playoff cutoff date approaching this weekend. The Lady Bulldogs (9-5) were beaten twice by Hamilton last year, and McGinley couldn’t even recall if his team had ever beaten Hamilton. But the Lady Bulldogs came out and took control immediately, moving to a 12-point lead at the half.
Junior guard Kristy Cramp, who has been playing terrific basketball, scored 29 points. Even a box-and-one on Cramp couldn’t stop her. Cramp had 16 in the second half, including 10 in the fourth quarter after Hamilton had cut the lead to 41-37. At one point in the fourth, the Hornets moved to within one, but Cramp hit a shot and the Lady Bulldogs pulled away in the final eight minutes.
"Kristy took the game over," McGinley said.
Emily Newport added 15 for the winners. Suzy Noyes had six.
"Emily (Newport) had a nice, solid game, and we just did what we had to do to win," McGinley said. "It was a big win."
Saturday’s game won’t soon be forgotten. The Lady Bulldogs had a 3-point lead at the end of the third overtime, but the Cougars’ Tori Sensi hit a 3-pointer to force another extra period.
"We left somebody open, and the girl hit a 3," McGinley said. "She made a big shot. We were kind of emotionally drained after that. We kept telling the kids to keep playing and stick together.
"Give Montgomery credit. They called a timeout and made the play."
Montgomery’s Ali Tartacoff was supposed to take the last shot. But Tartacoff was tightly guarded, so she passed to Sensi on her right. Sensi made the shot. The Cougars outscored the Lady Bulldogs 14-9 in the fourth overtime to win the game and stop Hopewell’s six-game winning streak.
Last year, Hopewell Valley eliminated Montgomery from the state tournament in Montgomery.
Cramp had 17, and Newport had 15.
Meredith Rutledge added 12 for Hopewell.
"It was a great game, but we made some mistakes, some crucial mistakes," McGinley said. "I think we learned from it, and it’ll make us better."
On Friday night, the Lady Bulldogs cruised against Princeton. Sophomore center Jhonna Tirpak led Hopewell with 13 points. Nine different Lady Bulldogs scored.
"We spread it around," McGinley said.
The Lady Bulldogs will play host to West Windsor-Plainsboro North on Friday night, then play at Pennington on Saturday.