Freshman helps MHS girls’ basketball to 3-0 start
By: Justin Feil
HOPEWELL Marcia Voigt has been taking jump shots in the Montgomery High gym since she was a third-grader.
Now they count for the Cougars.
"I’ve been waiting a while for her," said MHS girls’ basketball coach Paul Popadiuk. "She’s been in the gym all the time, after every one of my games since she’s come into the system. It’s been a pleasure. Now she’s finally mine."
Voigt, a freshman guard, hasn’t disappointed in helping the Cougar girls’ basketball team to an unbeaten start. On the road at Hopewell Valley on Thursday, Voigt had 14 points to engineer a 51-38 win over the Bulldogs that helped MHS improve to 3-0.
"I think we’ve started off strong," Voigt said. "We have a good team bond so we all get along on the court and support each other. It helps out."
It’s the only way that a team that consists mainly of freshmen and sophomores can compete with more veteran teams. So far, the Cougars, who return only senior Katie Wiseman and junior Emily Hyncik from last year’s varsity team, have looked anything but inexperienced. It helps to have a seasoned AAU player like Voigt.
"Marcia is going to be. . .," Popadiuk stopped before correcting himself, "Marcia’s good. She’s working on a lot of facets of her game, but she can create and doesn’t realize what she can create yet. She handles the ball very well. I keep telling her to keep taking it to the basket. Emily is a scorer. And the young girls are stepping up. Everyone is doing their piece and someone else steps up."
Hyncik led the Cougars with 16 points Thursday. MHS raced out to a 23-2 first-quarter lead. They closed out the first quarter with a 14-0 run that began with the old-fashioned three-point play by Voigt and ended with a three-pointer by Hyncik.
"The girls came out and did a nice job from the get go," said Popadiuk, whose team plays in the Gene Haley Tournament at JFK-Iselin tonight and Wednesday. "We were intent on getting out of the gate early. We just played Ridge and I’m not sure we played very well (in a 48-46 win). We got out well against Ridge and then we faded, missed a lot of shots, made a lot of mistakes. And Hopewell beat Ridge. We beat them by two.
"We wanted to get out and hopefully take some of the pressure off and put some of the pressure on them. We got out and looked to pressure and run. The press worked very well today. We were able to run and get some good looks."
Getting out to a good start is particularly helpful with such a young team. The Cougars rallied from a nine-point deficit against Ridge midway through the third quarter, but they’d prefer to keep getting off to quick starts.
"It’s given us a lot of confidence," said Voigt, who got plenty of big-game experience as she helped the MHS girls’ soccer team to the Group III state title in the fall.
Voigt came to the high school with a lot of confidence. She wanted to contribute to the girls’ basketball team in her first year.
"I was really hoping I’d be able to step up and be able to play at the varsity level," she said. "I knew it was going to be young because we lost four or five seniors. I knew there were going to be a lot of people who had to come up."
With so many sophomores and juniors playing up, the MHS junior varsity and freshmen teams are struggling. The varsity, surprisingly, has exceeded early expectations.
"I was looking at I could be 2-1 now and I’d be ecstatic," Popadiuk said. "I had to get one out of the first three. You never know what you’re going to get when seven out of your first 10 are sophomores or freshman. So I’m ecstatic.
"I knew at Voorhees that we could be good on any given night. I was nervous at first. That’s a tough place to play. But we came out and put it to them. We were up 17-7 in the first quarter. We scored 32 or 34 points in the first half and that gave us a sense of, if we do what we can do, we can be pretty good. Ridge also showed us if we don’t do what we need to do, we can be pretty bad. But the girls don’t quit. They just go, go, go."
It’s the new style that Popadiuk has brought in this season. After years of a more deliberate offense, the Cougars have turned up the pace.
"It’s fun," Popadiuk said. "It’s a fun style of play. We shoot as much as we can. We run as much as we can.
"I don’t think it was a change for them because we’re so young. Only Katie has experience and Emily (does). We have a whole new group of girls and we started this summer. For Katie and Emily it was a great change. They adapted right to it. And I played that way in high school and now finally have the type of team that can do that. It wasn’t by choice we were doing some of the things we’ve been doing over the last eight or nine years. It’s just the kids you got are what you can do things with. This group is very athletic and can run."
Voigt fits the mold. She is quick, sees the court well on offense and plays passing lanes well at the defensive end.
"I always like running down the court and doing fast breaks," Voigt said. "This is a good way of doing things. This is more fun. You’re constantly running so you have more time to play."
Added Popadiuk, "She sees the court well. She zips the ball. She’s going to get better. It’s a lot to throw at them. They think running is easy. Running is harder than not running if you do is properly with spacing and secondary break and it’s a lot of things for them to remember."
He is living with more mistakes and more turnovers than ever, not just because MHS is a young team but because of the new style of play. It comes with the territory when teams run as much as Montgomery does.
"There are more turnovers, more mistakes, and you have to encourage them or try to," Popadiuk said. "I have two assistants on the bench who kick me when I get too nutty. I try to be positive and just encourage.
"The juniors and seniors," he added, "have stepped up as leaders and made them feel comfortable that they can make mistakes. I think that chemistry has been the biggest change this year. They’ve been great."
Voigt, along with Wiseman, has helped push the pace up the court. Being a good decision maker and distributing the ball well as well as scoring are just some of Voigt’s contributions.
"Her demeanor has been a good influence," Popadiuk said. "She stays relatively calm. She’s another person who can handle the ball and create. In our fast break game, she gets the ball up the court. That’s probably her biggest asset right now is her ability to see the floor and push and make the long passes and get our break going.
"She’s still learning when teams give us different looks," he added. "She’s still tentative at asserting herself. She’s very good at taking the ball and pulling up. She shoots like a guy. She elevates. She hasn’t shown all of that yet. She’s going to get better and better."
The season, like the Cougars, is still young. Voigt points out that MHS still has to get better at executing its plays and learning to react without thinking in different situations.
"I’m hoping that I can help bring everything together even more," she said, "just like everyone else is trying to do."