Saturday, February 16, 2008

By Cory K. Doviak
NJS.com Editorial Director

Colleen Ahearn shooting the open layup with 6 seconds left in the game that gave Cresskill a 42-40 win over Dwight-Englewood and at least a share of the BCSL-Olympic Division title.

ENGLEWOOD -- The league title was on the line, the score was tied as the clock was winding down in the fourth quarter and Cresskill's Colleen Ahearn had the ball and the game in her hands. Make the open layup and Ahearn would give her team a lead in the final seconds of a game that could clinch a share of the BCSL-Olympic Division championship. Miss the layup and who knows what might have happened.

“I just started running, I was open and the layup was right there. It was shocking that I was so open,” said Ahearn, who beat the crowd down the floor after a made free throw at the other end tied the score. “I just concentrated and made my layup.”

She did and it turned into the winning two points in Cresskill’s 42-40 win at Dwight-Englewood that locked up at least a share of the league title. Cresskill (17-5, 14-1) could win the title outright with a win against New Milford on Tuesday or if Dwight-Englewood (13-6, 12-2) losses either of its last two league games next week. Although Cresskill swept the season series, there is no tiebreaker so if the teams each finish at 14-2 there would be a split championship.

Julia Schneider led D-E with 16 points, including the three-point play that drew the Bulldogs even at 40 with 14 seconds left to play.

“We knew this was going to be a tough game. We struggled with them the first time (a 38-32 Cresskill win on Feb. 15) when we won by six and we just knew that we had to get the job done tonight,” said Jennifer Kalish-Rilli, who is in her first season as Cresskill’s head coach. “We can enjoy this win, but it’s not over yet. We still have another league game next week and then the state tournament.”

A tough game it was as neither team held more than a seven-point lead in the entire game and there was no lead bigger than four points either way in the second half. It was Dwight-Englewood that had the game’s biggest advantage in the second quarter when Nicole Long scored on a back door layup to give the Lady Bulldogs a 16-9 lead with 6:09 to go in the first half and held the same seven-point edge at 18-11 when Sara Brscia scored inside.

But Cresskill closed the gap from the free throw line and in fact it was from there that the Cougars did most of their offensive damage, especially in the first half. Cresskill made just 12 field goals and one three-pointer in the game, but shot 26 free throws in the game and made 17 of them.

Carly Cerone shot 13 free throws in the first half and made 10 of them. She also went on a personal 8-0 run with six of those points coming from the stripe to close the first half to take Cresskill from down 19-15 to up 21-19 at halftime.

Carly Cerone led all scorers with 24 points and made 14 free throws for Cresskill.

Cresskill led by a point, 29-28, at the end of three quarters and the game was tied five different times in the fourth quarter at 29, 31, 33, 35 and 40. Cresskill took a 40-37 lead with 55 seconds left to play when Cerone turned the corner, won the baseline and made a layup and the Cougars could have made it a lot easier on themselves but missed the front end of two one-and-one opportunities.

And so it was that Cresskill was still just up by three points when Dwight’s Liz Henriksson grabbed a defensive rebound and out-letted a pass to Schneider, who raced to the other end, drew a foul and made both the layup and the free throw to tie the game with 14 seconds left.

“Both teams played well, they played really hard on defense and both teams gave themselves a chance to win,” said Dwight-Englewood head coach Rich Muller. “Both teams had opportunities and really that is all you can ask for in an important game like this.”

It was what each team did with its final opportunity that made the difference. Cresskill got the fastbreak layup from Ahearn and the Bulldogs final possession started with Schneider pushing the ball up the floor and passing off to the wing for the game’s final shot that was blocked.

Anna Kaminsky scored 10 points for Dwight-Englewood, which fell to 13-6 with the loss.

Cerone led all scorers with 24 points and Ahearn added seven for the winners. Florina Borova scored all six of her points after halftime, Nikki Hernandez and a field goal and Stephanie Durakis had the lone made three-pointer for Cresskill, which can lock up the outright league title with a win on Tuesday against New Milford or with a Dwight-Englewood loss to either Bogota or Leonia.

Schneider finished with a team-high 15 points for the Bulldogs, who also got a double figure outing from Anna Kaminsky (10 points). Brscia finished with 9 points despite missing a good chunk of the fourth quarter with an injury and Amina Lawrence had two field goals before fouling out midway through the fourth quarter.

“We were really nervous coming into the fourth quarter and we knew we had to step it up and take control,” said Borova. “You just have to fight through the nerves, we did that and we were able to get out of here with a win.”

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