Wednesday, January 16, 2008

By Carl Nasman
NJS.com Multimedia Coordinator

CRESSKILL -- There was plenty riding on Tuesday night’s BSCL-Olympic Division girls basketball match-up, but a dead battery threatened to hold up the entire proceeding. Cresskill and Dwight-Englewood had to put their first place show-down on hold for 10 minutes while the Cresskill scorers’ table replaced the batteries in the public address microphone.

Once that was sorted out and the lineups had been announced, the two remaining undefeated squads in the BCSL Olympic went to work.

Dwight-Englewood was playing for more than just first place. Senior guard Julia Schneider came into the contest just 21 points shy of the career school scoring record. Schneider came up short, netting 16 points, and Cresskill pulled away from the Bulldogs in the fourth quarter for a hard-earned 38-32 victory. The Cougars (8-2, 7-0) now stand alone atop the BCSL-Olympic.

Cresskill led 12-7 after the first quarter and tried to hold that lead with a triangle and two defense to combat the explosive Schneider.

“We knew that to win, we had to limit her opportunities,” said Cresskill head coach Jennifer Rilli. “We knew she’d get shots, we knew she’d make these great moves, she’s an outstanding player, but we knew that in order to win we had to hold her to as few points as possible,”

The strategy seemed to rattle the Bulldogs (6-3, 5-1), especially in the second half as Schneider managed just seven points, including three in the fourth quarter. Whenever Schneider managed to get past her defender, there seemed to be a shot blocker lying in wait.

“This is something different, we weren’t prepared for it. It’s maybe not the toughest defense but it was the most confusing. We did a lot of studying before the game, but we were not prepared for it,” said Schneider.

The Cougars were paced by Carly Cerone’s 10 points. Stephanie Durakis added eight, while Sarah Malmut and Flo Borova chipped-in seven each. Dwight-Englewood got strong performances from Amina Lawrence and Anna Kaminsky who scored nine and seven points, respectively.

The Cougars travel to Northern Highlands for a non-league match-up on Thursday before wrapping up their first BSCL-Olympic rotation on Tuesday with a home game against New Milford.

Schneider needs just six more points to break Dwight-Englewood’s all-time career scoring record of 1,282. She should get those six and more when the Bulldogs host Bogota on Thursday night. Schneider would have the highest career point total of any Bulldog player in history, boy or girl.

Hear all about it in this special NJS.com Audio Report!