By: RIch Fisher
After a hot stretch in which it won five straight games, South Brunswick High’s girls’ basketball team has cooled entering the post-season with two straight losses.
The Vikings fell to J.P. Stevens, 45-42, last Thursday, then got crushed, 57-35 by South Plainfield Saturday.
Seemingly not the best way to go into tonight’s (Thursday’s) GMCT opener with Edison. But junior forward Susie Miller points out that the loss to the Tigers was definitely not as bad as it looked.
With the way the seedings are set up, if 6th-seeded South Brunswick can beat 11th-seeded Edison for the third time this season, it will meet 3rd-seeded South Plainfield in Monday’s quarterfinal.
Thus, coach Beth Barrio figured in a game that meant nothing, why show the Tigers anything?
"We played in a 3-2 zone most of the game," Miller said. "Some people look down on it, the way we lost that game. But we knew what happened. We talked about what we would do before the game, everyone kind of understood we weren’t going to do what we usually do."
As for losing momentum, Miller said that’s not an issue for a team that takes every game as a new encounter.
"We took it game by game all year," she said "We looked at every team, we would change our game against every team we played. So, we don’t worry about the momentum."
Although it’s never easy to beat the same team three times in a season, the Vikings should get past the Eagles if they play their normal game tonight. South Brunswick is 13-9 overall and finished 9-5 in the Greater Middlesex Conference’s Red Division, while Edison is 7-14 and 5-9 in the division.
"We beat them by about 15 the last time we played, but it was a good game," Miller said. "It should be a good match-up. It was definitely a physical game."
Miller is at her best in a physical game, as her rebounding prowess has been a key to the Vikings this season. The lone drawback has been when she has gotten too physical, which has led to foul trouble.
"That’s the hardest part for me, staying out of foul trouble," she said.
Miller is one of just two players, along with Jordan Confessore, who played in last year’s GMC basketball tournament. But the duo also has ample experience in other GMCT’s, as Confessore played in three straight finals in volleyball and Miller has been in the pressurized goalie spot in soccer the past two seasons.
"Tournament time you always know there’s a lot of pressure," Miller said. "It’s really intense, you see new teams. I guess our experience helps. You know that you don’t want to be too over-excited or cocky."
Miller and Confessore will lead the Vikes into the post-season, while Ashley Wandishin, Meggy Ferrara, Lori Pearson, Christina Campagnoli and Christina Kotarski round out the rotation. It’s a new cast of characters that definitely provided more during the regular season than anyone thought possible at the start of the year.
"No one expected us to do, anything really," Miller said. "We didn’t have a starter back from last year’s varsity. A lot of us were hoping we’d be .500 . We knew we’d have it hard, but we really play well together, that made things a lot easier.
"Not too much has changed from last year. (First-year head coach Barrio) is a great coach, everyone trusts her and we all know she’s doing what’s best for the team."
Probably the most impressive facet of the Vikings regular season is that they carved out a winning record without point guard Janay Barnett, who was expected to return until suffering a knee injury that has kept her out all season.
Miller said that news was greeted with mixed emotions.
"Some people thought it would be a lot harder," she said. "But some people thought that when you don’t have something, you just try and work harder because you know someone isn’t there. I think it pushed us.
"Janay would die to be in there now. We all tried to work as hard as we could because we knew she would do the same thing."
The Vikings hope that hard work pays off, now that the post-season is here.

