By Kyle Moylan, Sports Writers
Naming the schools on the schedule for her team this week, Allentown High girls’ basketball coach Linda Weise couldn’t help but laugh.
West Windsor South (scheduled for this past Tuesday), Trenton (tonight) and Northern Burlington (Saturday) are not only good teams, they are teams that have won state titles and certainly can not be ruled out of doing it again this season.
”It is what it is,” Weise smiled. “It’s probably a good thing we clinched a playoff spot last week.”
Allentown won two of three games this past week to clinch a playoff spot and take an 11-6 record into the games against the trio of terror.
”At this time of the year, you want to play the toughest schedule to get ready for the states,” Weise said.
Of course, it would be more ideal to have a team like Trenton on the schedule after the cutoff for the state tournament, but Weise’s point is a good one. Any win Allentown gets in the state tournament will have to come against a pretty good team.
Playing against pretty good teams this past week, Allentown won two out of three games.
Allentown had one of the best nights in the history of its basketball program as it clinched a state berth on Tuesday, Jan. 22 with a 47-26 win over Notre Dame.
Haley Wilhelm scored 21 points, Bea Pesciotta 11 and Angela Scibilia six to lead Allentown to the win. Another important number from the night was $4,700, which was the amount of money the team raised to help fund breast cancer research.
”That was a great night,” Weise noted. “We had a packed house and it was a great atmosphere. I want to thank the community for supporting us and the charity.”
Pesciotta scored 17 points and Wilhelm added 16, but Allentown was defeated by Hopewell Valley last Friday, 63-49.
”That was a tough team and we turned the ball over way too many times,” Weise said.
Injuries to Pesciotta and Amanda Turowski didn’t help.
”We needed some other players to step up,” Weise said. “That didn’t happen.”
Fortunately, it didn’t take Allentown very long to regroup. On Saturday morning, Pesciotta and Turowski scored 10 points each, Angela Scibilia nine points, and Wilhelm and Lindsay Bacovin five points each in a 39-29 win over New Egypt.
”We seem to be at our best when we get a balanced scoring attack like that,” Weise said.
Starting with a 11-2 first quarter didn’t hurt. And when New Egypt made a run that cut the deficit to 27-22 early in the fourth quarter, Allentown had the talent and drive to take back control of the game.
”The best way to take the bad taste out of your mouth from a game like (this past Friday against Hopewell) is to come out and win,” Weise noted.
Weise and her players are anxious to see just how much winning they can do when the playoffs start. One thing is for certain, Allentown will not be up against a ridiculously good opponent like it was last year when it traveled to Willingboro, just a sixth seed, in the opener. Willingboro would go on to win the Group III state championship.
”It was hard to believe that was a sixth seed,” Pesciotta laughed.
Added Weise, “We’re back in Group II again. That’s different and it helps. We’re playing for a good seed now. I don’t know if there’s a home playoff game in sight, but that’s one of the things out there.”
Pesciotta, a junior, feels the team is better prepared for the state tournament this time around. With her and so many of her teammates getting to start on varsity as a freshman, there has just been steady progress.
”I had a feeling that our junior and senior years would be our best ones,” Pesciotta said. “We play together year after year and bonded. We work hard in practice and are getting better and better.”
This week will give Allentown a clue how good it has become. It will also help set up how far the team can go in the playoffs.
”A home game would be awesome,” Pesciotta said. “We just have to go out there and add wins to our record.”
Even if the opponents are West Windsor South, Trenton and Northern Burlington.