WEST WINDSOR: Knights end year on high

MHS hoops advances, South girls fall

By Justin Feil, Assistant Sports Editor
   Defensive battles saw Packet-area girls basketball teams emerge with wins in two out of three state tournament games, including an upset by West Windsor-Plainsboro North.
   In Central Jersey Group IV, second-seeded Montgomery High advanced to today’s semifinals with a 39-35 win over seventh-seeded Steinert on Wednesday. Laura Coletti and Marcia Voigt combined for 33 of the Cougars points with Coletti hitting 5-of-8 free throws in the final quarter to seal the victory.
   ”I think we got the rust off,” said MHS head coach Kevin Kretschy, whose 22-4 squad hosts upset-minded No. 6 Brick Memorial. “We haven’t played since last Thursday. We have another home game, so we need to shoot better. We did some good things. We just had a bad shooting night. If we lost, we understood why. It’s not like we played bad.”
   The defense was good as usual. MHS allowed just four points in the first quarter and five in the third quarter.
   CJ IV No. 9 seed West Windsor-Plainsboro South lost, 42-33, at eighth-seeded Freehold Township on Tuesday. Defense kept the Pirates in the game, but they made just 13 of 40 shots and were out-rebounded by nine. The senior trio of Steph Dontas, Liz Huttner and Tory Sharpless, who has started every game of her high school career, combined for 26 points in their scholastic finale.
   ”It was a roller coaster year,” said Pirates head coach Lisa Guarneri of her 14-9 season. “We couldn’t put all our strengths together. We had good wins over (WW-P) North, Steinert and Notre Dame. We only had one loss that we shouldn’t have. Overall, losing five seniors last year, these three seniors did a good job of leading us this year.
   ”It is going to be tough to replace them. They are the leadership we had. A lot of the other kids we had were sophomores. They did a good job of showing them leadership and showing what they need to do when they fill their roles.”
   Roller coasters only begin to describe the season for WW-P North, the Central Jersey Group III No. 9 seed which upset No. 8 Wall, 38-35, Tuesday. The Knights improved to 12-15 with the win and earned a shot at No. 1 Neptune, scheduled for Thursday after deadline.
   ”We had a rocky road throughout our season, but I think we ended on a good note,” said Jenna Greenstein, who led the Knights with 11 points. “People didn’t expect us to go this far.”
   The junior guard knows a thing or two about rocky roads. She missed an entire week of school with the flu, returned to the team only to fight another bout of it weeks later and then was hospitalized when a cyst was discovered. She is still scheduled to get her tonsils out after the season.
   ”I’m trying to get in and do the best I can,” Greenstein said. “Sometimes I’ll be in pain and I have to fight through it.
   ”Thank the Lord I can do everything now,” she added. “I’m still so out of breath. I lost two weeks. That’s why I get out of breath a lot. I’m still in pain, but I have the spring to heal myself.”
   Greenstein helped delay the coming of the spring with an offensive burst Tuesday. She scored eight of her 11 points in the second quarter, and her three-pointer accounted for the only Knight points in the third quarter.
   ”We were clicking offensively in the first half,” said North coach Bob Boyce. “The first half of that game was probably the best half of basketball we played. We were clicking — defensively and on offense we were attacking the basket. The third quarter, we couldn’t make anything. We scored three points off an inbound play. We were doing a good job on defense. We only scored nine points in the second half, and won.”
   Kathryn Davis helped to hold Wall standout Kathryn Campbell to 16 points, under her 20-plus season average. Davis also made two free throws in the final seconds to seal the defensive win.
   ”We were not expected to win,” Greenstein said. “Our parents, of course, and our coach, were confident. Without them, we wouldn’t have done it.”
   Added Boyce: “We’re like a baseball team with good pitching. You’re not going to score a lot. The question is, will we score enough to win?”
   The Knights entered Thursday with another hurdle to play through as starting forward Erin Egan potentially suffered a broken nose against Wall. She intended to play Thursday, as the Knights looked for what would be the upset of the tournament.
   ”We have nothing to lose so our coach wants us to play our best,” Greenstein said after the win over Wall. “We’ll never have this chance to play the No. 1 team in the state. We’ll try our best. We have nothing to lose.”