February
16, 2004
March 21,
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| Dana Beierle and Pascack Valley wrestled away Tenafly's hopes of another upset. |
RIDGEWOOD - Sunday's Bergen County quarterfinal between top-seeded Pascack Valley and eighth-seeded Tenafly appeared to be the least likely to end up in an upset winner. But just one year ago, with the two teams holding the exact same seeds, Tenafly, fueled by a phenomenal performance from Alana Casner, pulled the tournament's biggest upset with a two-point triumph.
The lesson the Lady Indians learned in that game was that a team, no matter the seed, must come with its 'A' game for 32 minutes, or the result can be a devastating loss.
Heather Zurich and Kristen Brown showed why they are two of the county's top players, each netting 20 points as Pascack Valley never gave Tenafly a chance for a second upset with a 55-28 romp.
"We always want to come out and play hard, but losing this exact game last year made us that much more motivated," said Brown. "Last year we let them get into a rhythm and it gave them confidence. Once they had the confidence, then they were fearless. We wanted to set the tone right from the beginning of the game and it starts with our defense."
Zurich
and Brown were the key figures all day long, especially over the first eight
minutes when Pascack Valley outscored the Lady Tigers 13-3.
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| Kristen Brown scored 20 points and helped Pascack Valley reach the semis. |
The Indians held a sizable first-quarter lead last year before Casner heated up. Tenafly once again got hot early in the second quarter and twice cut the lead to six on short jumpers from Brittany Elia and Morgan Henderson, but never got any closer.
"We have a more-balanced team this year, but it would have helped to have a scorer like Alana (Casner)," said Tenafly head coach Jeff Koehler. "I think they were more motivated than they were last year. Also, they are a very well-coached team and we couldn't get anything going offensively."
"Last year, we liked to slow down the game and it helped us," added Koehler. "This year, we're a bit more up-tempo and when we don't make shots, it leaves them open to run the floor and get some easy buckets. We didn't shoot as well as we would have liked, but Pascack Valley is a great team and they took it to us."
PV Point guard Dana Beierle ran the motion offense to perfection as the Indians opened up the third quarter with a 9-2 run. With that, the lead was pushed up to 19, 33-14, and Pascack Valley breezed its way from there into the semifinals, where they will face fourth-seeded River Dell, a 46-44 winner over fifth-seeded and defending champion Holy Angels.
"Tough defense wins games and we really turned it up on the defensive end," said Zurich. "Our team really focused on shutting down (Henderson). Kristen did a great job on her and we did not want to give her any good looks at the basket. We knew their offense ran through her, so we tried to shut that down. Overall, we don't want to look past anyone and just continue to take everything one game at a time."
Zurich and Brown tied for game-high honors with 20 points as the top-seeded Indians improved to 20-0, while getting solid production on the defensive end from Beierle, Jaclyn Creange, and Bryanne Corra. Elia led Tenafly with eight points and Henderson with six.
"I like to preach fundamentals in practice and they showed in that first quarter," said Pascack Valley head coach Jeff Jasper. "A lot of teams like to push the ball up the floor, but we believe in playing solid half-court defense and there are not many of those teams around. It is a very pure way to play the game. We try to play the game they way it was supposed to be played and (today) I think we did a pretty good job of doing that."
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