Little Tigers survive Monroe for first win

By: Rich Fisher
   With the Monroe and Princeton High basketball teams both coming off tough opening-night losses, each side felt Monday night provided the perfect opportunity to gain that all-important first win of the season.
   The Falcons were recovering from a 64-19 loss to Colonia, which could be one of the top teams in the Greater Middlesex Conference’s White Division. The Little Tigers were coming off a 47-32lost to Hamilton.
   When it was all said and done, Princeton took its second win in as many years over the Falcons, as it slugged its way to a 38-34 victory in what has come to be known as The Cranbury Press Classic. Well, it’s not really known as that, but since it’s the two teams we cover, we’ll call it that.
   "It was exciting," said Cranbury’s Stephanie Grubb, who had eight rebounds for the Little Tigers. "It’s going to be a hard season, but I think we’ll get through it. I think we just hope we can get to .500 and get to the state tournament."
   Monroe is harboring no such hopes. After an 0-21 season, the Falcons are looking for positives in little bits and pieces. Monday night would have been a good way to start, as Princeton was in a beatable mode.
   "Starting out with Colonia was definitely a very difficult game for us to start off the season with, after the season we were coming off of last year," said first-year Falcon coach Leigh Vogtman. "They’ll be the top team in the division. I really can’t base our season off of that one.
   "This one here, I would consider this to sort of be more our first game. It was a well matched game. But we needed better shot selection and we needed to crash the boards. We’re small on the inside, we have to work on crashing the boards and getting hungry and getting putbacks."
   But it was the Tigers rebounding that made the difference in a sloppy but intense game. Erin Cook collected 19 points and 15 rebounds, as she, Grubb and Linda Dorman (seven boards) helped the Little Tigers to a 47-36 rebounding advantage. Monroe’s Lindsey Curran and Marissa Allamby had eight apiece, but the Falcons had trouble converting their offensive rebounds into points.
   Princeton did not do much better in that area, as the Little Tigers shot 12-for-45 while Monroe was 13-for-57. Turnovers were just as bad, with PHS committing 38 and Monroe making 36.
   It was a helter skelter game, with both teams pushing the ball.
   "Every game is different, when we play against a certain team we look at what we can do against them," Princeton coach Nikki Inzano said. "We played Monroe last year and pushed it, I thought we could push it against them again and that’s what we tried to do."
   But because of the pace, turnovers abounded. Thus, neither team could pull away, although Princeton started fast and took a 13-4 advantage. Monroe chipped away as Allamby scored six of her nine points in the second quarter to pull MHS within 19-18 at halftime.
   Buckets by Lisa Cosentino, who also had nine points, and Allamby gave the Falcons a 22-19 lead early in the third quarter before Cook went to work. She hit a layup and two three-pointers to spark a 10-3 run over the final 5:19 of the third quarter, giving Princeton a 29-25 edge.
   "We kind of fell apart a little, turning the ball over," Inzano said. "They were taking charges, it took away from us, so I told our girls to stop short and take the jumper and that’s what we started doing in the second half. And we stuck strong when we had to."
   The Falcons took one final lead when Cosentino and Carly Keane sandwiched buckets around an Allamby foul shot to make it 30-29. But Kelly Curtis and Cranbury’s Amanda Santamaria hit consecutive hoops to make it 33-30, and Santamaria and Cook made foul shots to up the lead to five.
   With the score 36-32, Mai’Lee Paselio nailed a jumper to cut the Falcon deficit to two. Monroe then had a chance to tie it or win it after forcing a turnover with 22 seconds left. But Paselio’s baseline drive went off the bottom of the backboard and Princeton ran all but three seconds off the clock before getting fouled. Cook made both free throws to clinch it.
   "They wanted to win today’s game so bad, they were jittery and the adrenaline was going," Vogtman said. "We should have pulled it out at the end and worked it for one last shot, but they let the intensity of the game kind of push them through, and unfortunately it didn’t work out for us."
   It did work out for the Little Tigers, however, as they did not want to go into Trenton High on Tuesday with an 0-2 record. The Tigers ended up losing that one, to drop to 1-2.
   "It was a good win, we played really hard," said reserve forward Rebecca Shaffer, a Cranbury resident. "If we keep it up and improve on this, we’ll be even better."
   "It’s huge," Santamaria said. "It’s really setting us up for some confidence."
   Confidence, is exactly what Monroe is looking for. Vogtman feels it will come, noting that "the assistants and I have seen improvements with this team since day one.
   "The girls know they’re battling day in and day out," she added. "Every game is going to be a battle. They played very hard today, it just didn’t work out at the end."