Cranford Patch - Lady Cougars One Win Away From State Fame (With VIDEO)

Cranford Patch - Lady Cougars One Win Away From State Fame (With VIDEO)

The Cranford girls' varsity basketball team is just one victory away from a state sectional title after earning a 44-40 triumph over Voorhees at Glen Gardner Friday night in the North Jersey, Group 3 Section 2 state tournament semifinal.

It took another tough defensive effort and a second half offensive surge to get the job done.

Senior Jamie Webb led the way for the second straight game with 16 points, while sophomore Morgan Miller stepped up with nine and senior Taylor D'Antico with eight points.

The comeback kids did it again, fighting back from eight points down with six minutes to play in the fourth quarter.

That's when D'Antico hit a three-pointer, and then right after, with the ball going out of bounds, D'Antico grabbed it, got control and nailed a short jumper to cut the lead to three. Next possession, Webb buried a three to tie the game and from that point on, Cranford never looked back.

"We all talk about how we are a second half team," said head coach Jackie Huber. "For some reason, the first half is just not our thing. We came out a little flat on defense the first half. The second half, as usual, we picked up our defense, gave them hard shots when they were driving to the basket. When our defense plays well, our offense comes."

"We obviously didn't want our season to be over," said Webb. "It's great to make it to the sectional finals. I think we have a big chance of winning the whole thing."

Cranford led 6-4 after a low-scoring first quarter and trailed 14-10 at the break. Cranford then scored 34 points in a second-half outburst, including a 21-point fourth quarter, which is 11 points more than they had the entire first half.

"We had a lot of wide open shots but they were not falling," Huber noted. "We were doing the right things, but the shots weren't falling."

"It was really a challenge, it was a tough game," said freshman Jessica McCoy. "We went into halftime down, but we came out and everybody just stepped it up."

Voorhees was led by Miller Hartsoe, who had a team-high 13 points. Fifteen of the 40 Voorhees points cam from the free-throw line.

"It's really an unbelievable feeling and I'm so happy and proud of our team for getting here," said D'Antico. "We all wanted it really badly, so we were going to do whatever it took to get the job done."

Now it's on to the state sectional finals, where they will host Somerville Tuesday night at 7 p.m. at Martin Gymnasium in Cranford. The Lady Cougars will have the home game because of Somerville's upset victory over West Morris, which leaves Cranford as the higher-seed.

"It's exciting," said Huber. "We would like to have gone to the county final but the state sectional final is a lot better. Going into this season, everyone talked about how we graduated six seniors, losing big-time leaders on the floor for us last year. People thought we were going to struggle because we are young. Right from the beginning, we never backed down and we proved to people and we showed them that we are a good team regardless of who graduated and who's still here."

This is Cranford's second straight trip to the sectional finals, having lost to shore powerhouse Rumson. This time they expect the outcome to be different.

"Last year we got to the sectional finals and we played a really great team and we were really upset that we lost," said senior Danielle Gross. "I think we have a really great chance to win, we've been playing really well, we're going to have all of our fans here, and we're going to have everyone wear white, it should be a lot of fun."