When Jamie Webb hit the buzzer-beater "heard 'round Union County" to knock off top-ranked Roselle Catholic earlier this season, the word got out that the Cranford players were a team to be reckoned with.
And while that continues to be true, it was Roselle Catholic who came into Cranford's Martin Gymnasium Saturday, looking to keep their top spot in the county rankings intact and maybe, looking for a little revenge in the process.
The Lions took care of both with a 42-33 victory.
"I think they played really well," said Cranford head coach Jackie Huber. "We knew that they would come after us since we gave them their first loss of the season and what happened at their place. But I thought we did a really good job on defense."
"I'm pleased and proud of our team," said RC head coach Joe Skrec. "I thought we played a pretty strong game. We played a pretty strong fourth quarter, which is what we didn't do the first time, and we did it against a very strong team. Cranford is a very good team."
The visitors rolled out to a 10-3 first quarter lead and held a 21-12 edge at halftime, but could never quite pull away from the Lady Cougars.
"They give everybody matchup problem the way they can shoot the three" said Skrec. "They're very long, they rebound well, they can block some shots and they have a really good scouting report on us. To come out with a win at Cranford is a positive."
"They fight back just like we fight back," said Huber. "We just got into a little bit of a deeper hole than we would have liked. Offensively, we were rushing a little bit in the first half, then we talked about just relaxing and having our offense come to us and it did."
It was fitting that on senior day, that Cranford's leading scorer would be senior Jamie Webb, who had a team-high 12 points including a pair of three-pointers. Morgan Miller chipped in with eight points.
The Lions were once again led by one of the top players in the state in Allison Skrec, who made several outstanding shots in leading her team with a game-high 16 points. But that was a far cry from the 32 points she tallied in the first meeting, which gave Huber reason to smile.
"I think we did a good job of containing her today," Huber said. "We just talk about helping more, collapsing on her and I think we did a good job of doing that."
"One of the big things too was that we didn't foul as much on shooters," said Morgan Miller. "They had a lot of points on the foul line last time. Plus, they were playing good defense the whole entire game."
Next is the first round of the Union County Tournament, where the Lady Cougars will face the winner of St. Patrick's and Union on Monday night at 7:30 at Roselle Catholic High School.
"Union's an aggressive team," Huber said. "We match up pretty well with them. They're very aggressive. They're comparable to Hillside, so we just have to make sure we keep our composure and do a good job of containing them."
"I think we're in a good spot right now," said Miller. "I'm confident. We had a little bit of trouble a couple of weeks ago, but we got over it. I think we're back to where we should be."
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