Lady Raiders participate in camps, leagues
By: Rudy Brandl
The Hillsborough High girls’ basketball team won’t have much varsity experience when it takes the court in December. Four senior starters, including four-year varsity standout Kelsey Kutch, graduated last month, leaving many holes to fill.
HHS head coach Jim Reese and his staff have been working hard this summer to prepare for the future. Reese already has run camps for high school and middle school girls, with an offensive skills clinic set for July 23-26. He’s also offering individual improvement sessions for players who want to work on different parts of their game.
The HHS girls are also playing lots of games. The summer league in Hillsborough this year is running jayvee games on Mondays and Wednesdays and varsity contests on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Hillsborough is 3-0 in jayvee action and 2-3 in varsity play entering this week.
Both Hillsborough teams will be idle this week because 22 Lady Raiders are attending a team camp at Albright College. Reese and assistant coach Charlie Davis, who ran the camp for 5-8 grade girls last week, are spending the week in Pennsylvania with the team.
"A lot of kids are working hard," Reese said during last Thursday’s afternoon camp session at HHS. "That’s all you can ask for at this point."
The campers were kept busy during five six-hour days last week, many of which were incredibly hot and humid. They started the day at 9 a.m. with a shoot-around and followed with a warm-up shooting drill, plyometrics, dribble zig-zags, full court lay-up drill, help defense, low post moves, games, speed lay-ups, boxing out, moving without the ball, foul shots, more games and ended with a shooting competition.
Many of these players hope to be stars of the future, including Kristina Vangeli, an incoming eighth-grader who was the only seventh-grader to play on the Hillsborough Middle School ‘A’ team last winter. Vangeli is also one of the top players on the summer league jayvee squad, which is coached by Lou Foranoce.
Vangeli fired in a season-high 15 points in last week’s 38-31 victory over South Brunswick. She’s still a full year away from high school but has impressed her coaches this summer.
Scoring hasn’t been a strength for either summer league team. Foranoce’s younger squad is averaging 32 points per game with victories over Middlesex (29-27) and Somerville (29-22) leading into last Wednesday’s 38-point outburst.
"They’ve done a great job rebounding and they’re playing good defense," said Foranoce, the Lady Raider freshman coach during the high school season. "That’s what we preach in our program. They have to play defense to win games."
Hillsborough really clamped down defensively in last week’s win over South Brunswick, holding the opponent to just three points in the fourth quarter. Brittany Rubino added eight points to support Vangeli’s big night.
Lauren Miska, who scored a team-high eight points in the win over Somerville, has also played well this summer. Veronica Zuccarello netted six points in the first two victories. Stephanie LaManna led the team with seven points in the opening game.
It’s been an up-and-down summer for Reese’s varsity squad, which is playing without its three most experienced players. Kaitlin Capriccio, the lone returning varsity starter, is playing AAU ball along with Janice Jeschke. Kaitlin Kwiecinski, the incoming sophomore point guard, is still recovering from an ACL injury but should be ready to play in the fall.
"Kaitlin (Kwiecinski) will be out another month or so and Janice and Kaitlin (Capriccio) are playing more basketball than anybody on their AAU teams," Reese said. "They’re out several nights a week practicing."
The absence of these three players has given more younger girls a chance to compete at a higher level in the summer. The team put on its best offensive show of the summer in last week’s 53-46 win over Hopewell Valley, hitting seven 3-pointers.
Point guard Brielle Gerry led the Lady Raiders with 12 points, while Brittanie Vangeli added nine. Gerry, who also scored seven points to share top honors with Brittanie Vangeli for Hillsborough in Thursday night’s 50-40 loss to Montgomery, is the only varsity player to hit double figures this summer.
Hillsborough opened the season with a 32-27 loss to Hunterdon Central. Brittanie Vangeli (7), Rachel Jackson (6) and Christina Mehrtens (4) were the top scorers in that game.
Jackson netted a team-high nine points in the team’s 46-28 win over Bound Brook. Brittanie Vangeli and Meghan O’Reilly contributed eight and six, respectively.
Hillsborough fell back under .500 with a 52-38 loss to a tough South Brunswick team in the second week of the season. Melissa Weinstein led the way with nine points, while Jackson and O’Reilly added five apiece.
Gerry and Weinstein have done a nice job in the backcourt, while Brittanie Vangeli and Jackson have led the way in the paint. Other players on the varsity roster include Megan Barlow, Cassie Brush, Katie DeLuca, Maria DiTunnariello, Caitlyn Katzelnick, Alexa Voitovich, Ellen Vos, Jessica Vos, Melissa Warn and Alex Wysocki.
"We’re doing different things," Reese said. "We just need more consistency. We play in spurts. It’s all been in spurts, different people doing things in different games."
Both Hillsborough teams will resume summer league play next Monday. The playoffs are set to begin the week of Aug. 6.

