HHS stops Carr, routs Bernards
By: Rudy Brandl
The Hillsborough High girls wanted to send an early message that the Somerset County Basketball Tournament is still theirs until somebody takes it away. In Saturday afternoon’s quarterfinals, the Lady Raiders accomplished that in resounding fashion with a 54-32 romp over Bernards.
Top-ranked Hillsborough (16-4) stormed out of the gates with its most impressive opening spurt of the season, scoring 23 consecutive points in a 25-1 flurry that put the game out of reach in the first quarter. HHS head coach Jim Reese always likes to establish the inside game early, but rarely has his team been able to accomplish that this season. Saturday, the Lady Raiders pounded it down low and got scoring from all over the place in a near-perfect opening quarter.
"At county tournament time, we always get better," HHS senior Kelsey Kutch, who scored 11 straight points to end the first quarter and finished with 15 for the game. "Mr. Reese has been harping on defense all season. When we play our best defense, we play our best."
Hillsborough used a 1-2-2 trap to create several turnovers. By the time Bernards figured out how to break it, the Lady Raiders had a 20-point lead. The HHS girls were running and gunning with Ebony Jones scoring seven fast-break points in a span of less than two minutes.
"That worked well," Reese said. "I don’t like to use it against familiar opponents because they’ve seen it so much. With a team we haven’t played, it was very effective. We ran our break well. That’s always a plus for us."
The Lady Raiders established the interior game with junior Kaitlin Capriccio in the opening minutes. Capriccio scored six of her team’s first eight points and had eight by the time HHS built a 15-1 lead. She finished the afternoon with 12 points.
"They were a shorter team," Capriccio said. "The team did a great job getting the ball inside. We kept pounding it in. I needed to step up. I needed to prove myself."
Hillsborough did a fine defensive job on Bernards standout Catherine Carr, who Friday night became the 71st female in state history to reach 2,000 career points. Jones did most of the defensive work on Carr when HHS played man defense and held her without a field goal in the first half. Carr finally hit a few shots later in the game and finished with 10 points.
"She’s obviously very talented, but we play good players all the time," Reese said. "I knew that Ebony would do a good job on her. We made her work for every shot."
The Lady Raiders weren’t exactly lighting it up after the first quarter but led by as many as 29 points midway through the third quarter. Reese emptied his bench early and the home team cruised to victory. Kutch and Jones finished with 15 points apiece to lead the way.
Hillsborough completed its four-game homestand with a 4-0 record and now prepares for the tough final stretch. After Tuesday night’s crossover road game against a very good Voorhees team, the Lady Raiders will face Immaculata in the SCT semifinals.
The confidence and swagger appear to be back. The Lady Raiders opened the season at 7-0 but then went just 5-4 in their next nine games. Now, they’re on another hot streak at an even better time with a county three-peat on the line.
"I definitely think we can win it," Jones said. "If we keep playing and improving, there’s no reason anybody should take it away from us."

