Sunday, December 23, 2007

By Cory K. Doviak
NJS.com Editorial Director

Giana Scerbo scored nine points as part of a balanced Ridgefield Park offense that led the Lady Scarlets to its first win of the season, 52-26, over Leonia early on Saturday morning.

LEONIA -- It didn't matter that the game had the odd start time of 10:00 a.m. on a Saturday morning. It didn't matter that the opponent was not a familiar one or that none of the Ridgefield Park players had even been in the Leonia High School gym for a varsity basketball game. There could be no more excuses as the Lady Scarlets sought out win No. 1 after three straight frustrating losses to start the season.

And when the buzzer sounded after Ridgefield Park had led wire-to-wire in a 52-26 victory, it was as much a sense of relief as it was any other feeling for Scarlet head coach Scott Papetti.

“It’s obviously a huge weight off our back. There are still some things we need to work on, but it feels great to get the first one especially since we feel we should be 3-0 going into this game,” said Papetti. “Hopefully we can go from here now.”

Liz Quimby hit a three-pointer 34 seconds into the game to give Ridgefield Park the lead for good and Mary Haines scored back-to-back baskets, the second on a post move off an assist from Kristy Agresta, to cap the 15-2 run that the Lady Scarlets opened the game with.

Senior guard Brianna Sticco led Leonia with nine points.

Ridgefield Park built a 33-14 lead by halftime and cruised in the second half as its completely revamped roster got to taste its first victory. The Lady Scarlets lost all five starters and its top three bench players, the core group that won the Bergen County championships two years ago and made it back to the Final 4 last year.

This year’s team is made up primarily of last season’s junior varsity team that went a perfect 18-0, so the 0-3 start was as much of a surprise to the players as anyone else. The only returning Scarlet who played any meaningful minutes last year was senior Giana Scerbo.

“We had three games and we lost and it was really surprising because we play together, we are friends on and off the court,” said Haines (10 points), who was the only player on either side to finish in double digits. “We thought coming from JV and being 18-0 that it would be easier to play, but varsity is totally different. To finally win one game is encouraging and I think the mood of the team is going to totally turn around now.”

The Scarlets played as a team during their fast start as six different players scored in the first quarter and five different players scored at least one point in the second as they built the comfortable lead. It was the opposite for Leonia, which dressed only eight players because of injury and was further depleted when Meeru Park picked up three first half fouls.

Chrissy Deluca had nine points for RP, which notched its first win of the season.

“[Ridgefield Park] came to play today, but I think we did more to feed into it. I think their best offense was our turnovers. Give them credit for forcing them, but we could have done a better job taking care of the ball,” said Leonia head coach Dave Wunsch, whose team fell to 1-2 with the loss. “We are banged up, we suited up only eight girls and they answered the bell right at 10 o’clock and they took it to us.”

Leonia was led by nine points from senior guard Brianna Sticco and fellow senior Evyn Gregory-Stewart made two three pointers to finish with six. After the early foul trouble, Park scored all seven of her points in the fourth quarter and Krista Sticco had four points for the Lady Lions.

Leonia could have scheduled a patsy early on a Saturday morning and padded its record when no one was looking instead of inviting in a BCSL-American team that was playing for its season, but chose to take some lumps hoping it will help later on in the season in the BCSL-Olympic Division.

After early foul trouble, Meeru Park scored all seven of her points in the fourth quarter for Leonia.

“We could go play some school that we could beat by 50, but that doesn’t do any good because your starters are sitting,” said Wunsch. “So I played a tougher team like Ridgefield Park to get the girls ready to play a Cresskill or Dwight-Englewood or one of the tougher schools in the league.”

Ridgefield Park’s offense came from a variety of places as Haines’ 10 points were followed by nine each from Chrissy Deluca and Scerbo. Quimby finished with seven points, Nicole Santuoso and Brittany Margiotta each added six points and Courtney Hatton (3 points) rounded out the scoring for the Scarlets, who can now move into the Garfield Holiday Tournament with some confidence.

“We just really wanted to get this win. We felt like we shouldn’t have lost three straight games and we just had to find a way to get the first one,” said Hatton. “Now we know we can win and we just have to go out and play like we did today and good things can happen.”

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