Peddie wins 11th straight title

Falcon girls’ basketball edges Hun in Prep A final

By: Sean Moylan
   "My assistant coach (Eric Gustavson) said it was going to be a 32-minute game and he was right," said Sean Casey, whose mega-talented Peddie girls’ varsity basketball team defeated Hun, 58-56, to capture its 11th straight NJISAA Prep A title last Thursday (February 22) at the Erik B. Hanson Fieldhouse.
   It was a see-saw battle all the way, but early in the fourth quarter Lisa Lebak (8 points) connected on a three to give Peddie a lead (46-44) it would never relinquish. With under two minutes left in the contest, Peddie built that advantage up to 9, but Hun never stopped fighting until it had cut its deficit to 1 (57-56). While Peddie had struggled from the foul line much of the fourth quarter, freshman phenom Haley Peters, who tallied a team-high 12 points, made a clutch foul shot in the closing seconds to put yet another Prep title on ice for Peddie.
   While the Falcons love to spread the ball around on offense and use all of the many weapons in their offensive arsenal, Peters has had one great game after another in the past few weeks. And Casey was particularly impressed with a couple of her awesome offensive highlights.
   "Haley Peters hit a three and then she had a follow-up tip in," Casey remarked.
   Injured much of the season, a healthy Lexie Gerson, a sophomore guard, gave her teammates a little taste of her amazing capabilities as she tallied 9 points and played smothering defense the whole way. She even made a key steal down the stretch.
   Freshman Bridgette McKnight (10 points), junior Emily Hyncik (6 points), freshman Nekole Jackson (5 points), junior Ria Zanetich (4 points) and junior Lauren Sokol (4 points) all scored for the Falcons as well. Only a week before, the Falcons had defeated the same strong Hun team to win the MAPL title. But in that game most of the Peddie girls were not suffering from flu-like symptoms like they were last Thursday.
   "We had a lot of girls sick in last Monday and Tuesday’s practices," added Casey, whose team was still healthy enough to win another Prep championship.
   But if the Hun players think it will be any easier to beat Peddie next season, they’d better think again. Lauren Lebak, a talented guard who missed much of season due to injuries, is the only girl set to graduate on the entire squad. Moreover, many Peddie’s best players this season were only freshmen and sophomores, so the Falcons should be very good for at least the next two years.
   "The girls on the team bought into what we wanted to do," said Casey.
   On the surface that may not seem like much, but when you have a young team that starts out 3-5, loses arguably its best player (Gerson) to injury and still has to play one of the Nation’s toughest schedules, it’s hard to hold it all together and finish the year at 17-9 with two titles. But that’s just what Casey and the Peddie girls did.
   "This is the deepest, youngest team we’ve ever had. They really improved and are working well together," said Casey. "A good characteristic of this team is we really had no one star."
   That’s okay because 10 stars is better than one star any day of the week.