Rich Fisher

By: centraljersey.com
In a season where Kelly Williams and Sarah Gronet have provided the brunt of the scoring for the Hopewell Valley High girls’ basketball team, Nellie Tanguay stepped up in a big way at a big time.
The sophomore guard erupted for 16 points to help the second-seeded Bulldogs take a 49-43 victory over stubborn, 15th-seeded Burlington Township in first-round NJSIAA Central Jersey Group III tournament game Tuesday night.
The win advances the Bulldogs (20-6) to a quarterfinal home game at 6 p.m. tonight (Thursday) against Ocean Township.
And if the Spartans scouted Tuesday’s game, they suddenly have another concern in Tanguay.
"When we get her the ball in the right spots, Nellie has made those shots all year for us," coach Jeff Losch said. "She’s in the gym working on her game more than anyone else in the program. She’s come a really long way since last year and it’s been because of her tremendous work ethic and dedication to improvement."
Tanguay and Gronet scored 12 of Hopewell’s final 15 points as the Bulldogs had to rally from a 31-29 deficit entering the last quarter. The Falcons outscored HoVal by six in the third period.
"The biggest problem for us was lack of toughness in the third quarter," Losch said. "Burlington Township played much harder than we did.
"In the fourth, the key was picking up our overall toughness and some great shooting by Nellie. Her teammates did a great job of finding her and Nellie knocked down the shots."
Williams added 13 points and Gronet scored her six at crunch time.
The 20 victories for Hopewell are the most it has ever amassed under Losch, and they will try to make it 21 against a team from one of the best conferences in the state.
"We haven’t had a chance to discuss Ocean yet, but (freshman coach) Jeff Neumann saw them and we know they have a couple really good forwards," Losch said. We also know that teams from the Shore Conference play a very tough brand of basketball.
"Ocean my only be a 10-seed, but they lost to some very good teams, including twice each to Top 5 teams Red Bank Catholic and Neptune."