North girls basketball holds off Trenton
By Bob Nuse, Sports Editor
All season long, Bob Boyce has wondered what his West Windsor-Plainsboro High North girls basketball team was capable of if it ever put together four solid quarters.
On Friday night Boyce found out that when that happens, the Knights are capable of making history. WW-P North used a strong first quarter to take a 21-11 lead and then held on for a 51-47 win over Trenton. It was the first time in school history the girls had beaten the Tornadoes.
”It was a surprise,” said Boyce, whose team improved to 4-5. “I knew they were beatable because I had watched them. But I didn’t know if we would be the team to do it because we were struggling. There are some teams in our league that could beat them.
”I don’t what the difference was. We played a little better for sure. We have had good halves and quarters or a good three quarters and lost all three. We were up against Allentown and lost. We were tied with Hopewell Valley and then lost by 19. This was the first game where we put four quarters together. We were up 21-11 after the first quarter. That was a great start.”
Sarah McNeilly led a balanced all-around game for the Knights with 21 points, Kayla Foster added 10 points and 15 rebounds.
”We had not been playing whole games,” McNeilly said. “We would play one half well and one mediocre. We were psyched up to play hard all four quarters. We were trying so hard the whole game.
”We had never beaten them and they had a lot of CVC wins in a row. It was awesome to come out of the first quarter with the lead. That gave us energy and let us know we could do it. It was going to be hard to keep going at that speed the whole game. But getting off to a good start gave us a lot of energy.”
Trenton got within 29-23 by halftime and led, 37-35, heading into the final quarter. But the Knights never folded and came away with a huge, confidence building win.
”There was a lot of ex-players at the game and they were excited,” said Boyce, whose team will play at Robbinsville tonight. “We had never beat Trenton in girls and I am not sure if they had done it in boys either. The good teams we had over the years had not beaten them. The girls were happy to make history.
”It was a real team effort. Sarah McNeilly scored 21, but if you asked me if I had a 20-point scorer I would have said no. It seemed like everyone contributed something. Kayla had 15 rebounds. We did not have our point guard, Marilyn Allen, and another starter who was sick only played a few minutes. We had a lot of people who stepped up in their place. It was a team effort. Sarah had a ton of free throws in the fourth quarter.”
Even a day after the win the Knights were still walking on air.
”It was really awesome to go back to practice because we were all so excited to see each other,” McNeilly said. “On top of that I was still incredibly sore. I was still feeling that the next day. But it was worth it to go that hard and get the win.
”It was awesome and really big for us. Not only did we beat Trenton, but that was probably the first game we played so hard all four quarters. We didn’t give up for all 32 minutes. It was amazing. We’re excited and feel like it will turn the rest of season.”