There are a number of reasons the Cranford girls' varsity basketball team owns 19 wins this season.
Quite possibly the top reason is their balanced offensive attack. That part of their game was never more evident than last night when five players had eight or more points to seal another victory and move on in the NJSIAA state basketball tournament.
The Lady Cougars showed grittiness again. They were in control for much of the first three quarters before the visitors made a fourth-quarter comeback. But Cranford was undeterred, hitting the big shots and key free throws down the stretch to knock off West Morris-Mendham 55-50 in the quarterfinal round of the tournament, leaving them just two wins shy of a sectional title.
"It feels very good, it's very exciting," said Cranford head coach Jackie Huber. "We did this last year and no one thought we could. We're a little bit of a better team this year, so I'm a little more confident that we'll make it all the way."
"The entire game I knew we would have to play hard because we were playing a really good team," said senior Taylor D'Antico. "And in order to win, we had to play our game the entire time and play really strong defense and mark their shooters, which we had to do in the fourth quarter. We also knew that we had to come in and work our plays really well because they were face-guarding Jamie, so we all had to move around the ball really well."
Senior Jamie Webb (15 points) came up huge on both ends of the floor, creating with her dribbling and passing skills and hitting several key buckets while driving the lane. Sophomore Morgan Miller added 12, while freshman Kate McGovern chipped in with eight points and five rebounds to pace the home side. Jess McCoy and Danielle Gross also added eight points apiece.
When you have that many players who can shoot, it's almost impossible to stop it.
"We were firing on all cylinders tonight, we worked really hard," said McCoy. "We kind of came together, Jamie was all over tonight, scoring, getting rebounds and steals, Taylor was getting a lot of rebounds and Danielle had those layups and quick jumpers so it was all good. Kaitlyn stepped up really big, all of her shots were dropping, she was making power moves, Jenna (Goller) was driving and kicking. It just all came together tonight. We're just taking a really big step as a team."
"Jamie's a leader on the floor," said Huber. "She always finds the open girl, she works hard when we need points. She motivates her teammates, as well as a Danielle and Taylor. They always step up and are very good for us."
"Everyone has trust in each other, knowing everyone can make a play or make a shot and that's just one of the things that makes us hard to defend," said Miller.
Cranford got off to strong start, amassing a double-digit lead in the first half, but again in the third quarter they showed their Achilles heel, allowing Mendham to close the gap.
"We continually talk about how we need to come out strong and gain a lead in the beginning where we can just cruise, " Huber said. "For some reason, the third quarter has been a weak time for us. Sometimes I wish we didn't have halftime to take that eight minutes to have a break. We're going to work on coming back out strong in the third quarter as well."
Now, the Lady Cougars are just one victory away from a 20-win season and a place in the sectional title game.
"It's really unbelievable," said D'Antico. "because we came out here the beginning of the season with three new freshmen. We need every single person on our bench to get this far. We never expected it, but we came out and worked hard as a team and this is where we're at."
"It's really exciting," said McCoy. "We want to go farther than last year. It's so thrilling. I feel we can go really far this year."
"I knew that we were going to be good this year but I didn't know that we'd be this good," Huber said. "We graduated six seniors last year, four of which were starters for us. To add a freshman to the starting lineup and a sophomore, and play younger girls, no one could have thought that we'd be as good as we are."
The road gets a little tougher for the Lady Cougars, who will next travel south to Glen Gardner to take on No. 2 seed Voorhees, who defeated New Brunswick last night 41-28 to advance.
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