February
6, 2005
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| Pascack Valley's Sarah Ely faced the down the Hackensack defense. leading her team to a 55-32 win and into the Bergen County quarterfinals. | |
DEMAREST - Hackensack girls basketball coach Charles McKnight has nothing but respect for the winning tradition that Jeff Jasper has built at history-rich Pascack Valley.
"PV is the best public school program in Northern New Jersey and Coach Jasper has taught me so much about the game of basketball," said McKnight after his team took on PV in Saturday afternoon's Bergen County Round of 16 contest. "It was an honor for me and our program to be on the same court with that type of team in this type of environment."
Jasper has nothing but good things to say about McKnight and his team, which has seven sophomores in its playing rotation and a future that should produce plenty of wins.
"Charlie
McKnight and his whole staff do a great job," said Jasper, who knows a little
bit about good coaching, having won over 700 games in his career. "He's a
good man, a great friend and his team is well-drilled. They are young and
they are going to be terrific."
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| Ashley Cox, one of seven sophomores in Hackensack's rotation, scored 6 points. |
OK, so with Pascack Valley owning the past and Hackensack looking toward a bright future, the only thing left to be decided on Saturday afternoon was the present, which was up for grabs, along with a spot in next weekend's Bergen County quarterfinals.
The decision went to third-seeded Pascack Valley, which overcame a slow start and the Lady Comets' relentless defensive pressure to take a 55-32 win, its 16th of the season in 17 games.
Hackensack came out flying and actually owned a 9-8 lead after one quarter of play, but PV has Rutgers-bound senior Heather Zurich and she took over in the second quarter. Zurich scored 12 of her game-high 18 points in the second stanza and, in tandem with the Lady Indians' defense that took away Hackensack's lanes to the basket, turned the game around.
PV retook
the lead and then pulled away, building a 29-16 advantage at the break and
scoring 6 of the first 8 points of the third quarter to effectively put the
game away. There was no turning point, no key basket that swung the momentum,
just PV's textbook play on both ends of the floor that made it impossible
for Hackensack to find a rhythm.
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| Lauren Fornazor came off the bench to score a career high 11 points for PV. |
"Their defense, they sat in the paint and made us shoot jump shots and we couldn't buy a bucket. Coach (Jasper) does a great job of taking away what you do well, and we knew that coming in," said McKnight, whose team, the No. 14 seed, fell to 8-6 on the season but already has its state tournament spot locked up. "But we can take a lot of positives from this. Just being here in front of a packed house, the kids were into it and it was exciting."
Brynn Rosser, the only senior in the Comets' rotation, led her team in scoring with 10 points. Renee Henry, Ashley Cox and Nadine Cohen, three sophomores, all had 6 points for Hackensack while Sasha Quashie and Aysia Smith each added a field goal.
Zurich led all scorers, but got plenty of help. Jessica Lynch had 9 points, Sarah Ely, who bore the brunt of the Hackensack pressure at the point, added seven points and five assists and Hilary Scacchetti scored all 6 of her points in the first half before running into foul trouble. Lauren Fornazor took advantage of increased playing time by scoring a career high 11 points with 9 of those coming in the second half.
"Lauren Fornazor played terrific, Jessica Lynch did good things and Sarah Ely showed me something today because this game was played at RPMs much higher than she is used to. By the end, she made some great decisions," said Jasper, whose team will take on Ridgefield Park in next weekend's quarterfinals. "We threw it away a lot, but that is a credit to Hackensack, they are a challenging team that is in your grill the whole time. I was happy that we were able to play against that type of pressure and still get some things done."
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