Team hovering around .500 mark
By: John E. Powers
There were a lot of positives that came out of the Manville High School girls’ basketball team’s loss to New Providence last Thursday night. But moral victories are no longer part of the Lady Mustangs’ vernacular.
In fact, it was a game Manville needed with the state playoff cutoff date looming this Saturday. Manville had lost to Mount St. Mary Academy of Watchung Tuesday night and New Providence came in Thursday offering an another opportunity for the Lady Mustangs to beat a team with a winning record. And for more than two quarters it appeared that the opportunity was going to be taken.
Manville led 31-26 with 6:11 left in the third quarter when New Providence delivered a 15-2 run the Lady Mustangs never recovered from. New Providence, which beat Manville 52-43 in the second game of the year, went on to win 53-43. The Pioneers raised their record to 10-3, while Manville fell to 6-6.
"I think we had it, but they picked up their intensity and we didn’t," said Manville senior guard Dana Delesky, who finished with seven points. "We had the same kind of effort we had in the first two quarters as we did in the third. But the difference was that they picked it up to another level and we just stayed the same. We had to pick it up another notch."
Manville played an outstanding first half. Head coach Kyle Rehrig said he believed it might have been his team’s best of the season. Manville took a 5-0 lead on freshman guard Rhianna Lebedz’s basket and a three from Delesky.
The MHS girls led 16-10 when junior forward Robyn Barb scored off a pretty assist from senior forward Sarah Ortman. An Ortman shot early in the second quarter made it 18-12 and later senior Katy Walinchus fed her sister, Amy, for a bucket that kept the lead at six at 24-18.
But New Providence hung around. Foul shots were a big reason. The Pioneers were 6-of-8 in the first half; Manville 0-for-1.
The third quarter was the difference in the game. The Lady Mustangs, outscored 17-7 in the frame, couldn’t stop Allison Russo or Stephanie Allen. Manville’s last lead was 33-31 on a Lebedz basket. Russo, who had eight points in the period, scored to tie the game at 33-33 with 2:27 left.
New Providence then took advantage of three straight traveling calls against Manville to score baskets. Russo scored two baskets for a 37-33 lead. Lynn Lopez then hit another shot and it was 39-33. Russo finished the quarter with another bucket and Manville trailed 41-33.
"They were penetrating and we weren’t getting our rotations down," Rehrig said.
Rehrig didn’t want to use the excuse of his team getting worn down.
"They were just as tired as we were we’re all playing three games a week at this point," he said. "We had a couple of mental breakdowns and I thought that the first half was key, too. I mean I thought the first half was one of our best of the season and I look up at the scoreboard and we’re leading by two. You take away the foul shots and we’re up 10 to 12 points."
The final free throw statistics were lopsided as they were in the December game. In that one, New Providence held an 18-9 advantage at the line. This time it was 13-1.
"We played very well, I thought," Rehrig said. "They are the best team in the division for a reason. We proved we could play with them."
Lebedz, who had a season-high 15 points, kept her team in the game. She hit a layup and short jump shot to cut the New Providence lead to 41-37. That was as close as Manville would get as Sara Alberese answered with a layup. Lebedz also had five assists.
The Lady Mustangs finished the week with a 33-21 win at Newark Central as Katy Walinchus led the way with nine points and nine rebounds. That left the team with a 7-6 record, heading into the final week of qualifying for the state tournament. The Lady Mustangs were scheduled to play host to Sussex Tech Tuesday, then play a preliminary round Somerset County Tournament game against Bernards Thursday and play host to Brearley Friday.

