Monday, January 18, 2010

By Cory K. Doviak
NJS.com Editorial Director

Jillian Crawford hit her first shot of the game and never cooled down on the way to an 18-point game in Holy Angels' 60-50 win over rival IHA at The Games at Pascack Valley.

HILLSDALE -- Times were that games like this in front of packed houses were just another day in the old NNJIL. But since realignment took hold this season, Holy Angels and Immaculate Heart Academy had to find a spot on their independent schedules to renew acquaintances. The rivalry ramped right back up in a raucous gym at The Games At Pascack Valley, the six-game showcase to benefit Autism Speaks and The Juvenile Diabetes Foundation.

But since the two former league rivals have parted ways, which will likely be for this school year only, Holy Angels has entered the meat grinder that is the NBIL’s Division 1. IHA has moved to the North Jersey Tri County Conference, which has its tough competition but not the day to day grind that the NBIL presents. What that means is that Holy Angels is more battle tested and it showed in the second half of the Angels’ 60-50 win on Sunday afternoon.

Jillian Crawford scored in the post off an assist from Kasheema Besley to break a 29-29 tie and kick off a 13-2 run that Holy Angels used to take control for good in a game that what one of the best it has played this season; and it has played some good ones.

Despite foul trouble, IHA sophomore center Raquel Scott finished with a team-high 17.

“We are an up and down team, but I think the kids are starting to get it. We are playing more as a team now,” said Holy Angels head coach Sue Liddy, whose team improved to 7-4 on the season. “All of that [the battles in the NBIL] has now helped us become a better team mentally and a better team physically out there on the floor.”

IHA, a relatively young team with a freshman, Sam Wilkes, seeing a lot of time at the point guard position, was playing in its first real pressurized game since the Joe Poli Holiday Tournament, which was also played at Pascack Valley.

“We haven’t been through this yet and we knew that coming in. To be honest with you that is why we are here, other than to support a great cause and we are really happy to have been involved in this tournament since its inception,” said IHA head coach Steve Silver. “It’s always really exciting to play Holy Angels and I am sure they were excited to play us. Today we really jumped into the fire.”

With 4:16 left in the third quarter Nicole Pepe scored in transition and the next time down the floor was also important for the Angels as IHA’s Raquel Scott, the sophomore center, picked up her foul on an over-the-back-call. That took away the Eagles’ main advantage in the post, a key outlet against the Angels’ trap and left the middle open to more Angel cutters.

Nicole Pepe finished with 14 points for AHA, which improved to 7-4 on the season.

Kasheema Besley scored on a short bank shot and then on a drive all the way to the basket on consecutive AHA possessions and the Angels went up by double digits for the first time at 42-31 with 2:22 left in the third when freshman Melanie Lockett went coast-for-coast for another layup.

When Scott went out IHA was trailing 33-29. When she came back in the Blue Eagles were down 11 with 2:15 left in the third quarter and 42-33 after Ashley Morella made a three to close the third quarter scoring.

Scott made two free throws and then scored on the fastbreak off a pretty bounce pass from Wilkes early in the fourth quarter as IHA crept back to within 44-37, but Jackie Jerkovich restored AHA’s lead to double digits at 50-39 with 5:23 left in the game, but the next time down the floor proved to be decisive.

IHA’s Tara Wilk dove for a loose ball and wound up with possession while lying on her stomach. The choices were risk a travelling call, wait for an AHA player to jump in and force a jumpball, attempt a risky pass or call for a timeout. She chose the later, a heady play in most situations, but it was the Eagles final timeout and they went the final four-plus minutes without a way to stop the clock and set up strategy.

IHA freshman Sam Wilkes finished with 10 points.

“The key of the game, other than a couple of their kids getting in [foul] trouble, was right when we started pressing [Silver] had to call his final timeout. That hurt them,” said Liddy. “What I told our kids then was that the clock had to run, we can’t stop the clock let them stop the clock. I didn’t want us to go to a spread or go into a delay or anything, but I wanted them to keep moving and keep pushing the ball up the floor.”

Holy Angels went 7 of 8 from the free throw line in the final 2:24 to keep AHA at bay. The Angels had three players in double figures with Crawford leading the way with 18. Pepe added 14, Besley had 12, 10 of them in the second half. Jerkovich finished with 8 points and Lockett chipped in with 7 off the bench.

“In the beginning of the season we weren’t so confident. We knew we still had things to work on, but by this time, for this game we were completely confident that we going to play hard and play as a team,” said Crawford, who made her first shot and never cooled off. “It was very important [to make my first one] because I wanted everyone to know that I was ready for this game and that I wasn’t going to sleep on [IHA]. They are our rivals and when we heard that we were going to play them in this game we went crazy because last year we lost to them by two points in the state sectionals and this was going to be our payback.”

Jackie Jerkovich helped Holy Angels push the pace on both ends of the floor.

Scott finished with 17 points and Wilkes added 10 to lead IHA, while Morella scored in every quarter and finished with 9. Wilk contributed 6 points, Colleen O’Connell and Ali Volant each added three and Maggie LaRiviere’s third quarter field goal rounded out the scoring for IHA, which fell to 8-2 on the season.

So while both teams are playing in separate leagues for this year at least, they are still located in the same county and same state section, which means that Sunday’s matchup might just have been the first what could be a trilogy with the stakes being raised each time.

“We had a great first half, both teams did. That was a real exciting pace, but I didn’t like the fact that we had a bunch of kids with two fouls, so it didn’t take long in that third quarter for those to start adding up,” said Silver. “We have us down for 20 turnovers and I think that, against the kind of pressure that Holy Angels puts on and in this kind of environment, you have to cut that in half. That’s been our downfall and fixing it is going to be our focus.”

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