Monday, January 18, 2010

By Cory K. Doviak
NJS.com Editorial Director

Karli McMenamin hit the boards in the second half and it paid off in Old Tappan's 41-25 win over Tenafly in the Games At Pascack Valley on Sunday afternoon.

HILLSDALE – If there was any solace for the Old Tappan girls basketball after a first half in which it scored 12 points against Tenafly, it was that the Golden Knights actually had a two-point lead heading into the locker room and there was plenty of room for improvement. Old Tappan needed to pick up the pace in its Sunday afternoon start in The Games At Pascack Valley and crash the boards. Starting center Karli McMenamin knew it, and also knew what could happen if the Golden Knights didn’t pick it up against Tenafly, a team with which they have some history.

“The way we started out there was no energy, no nothing. We were playing right along with the other team. If they were playing slow, then we were playing slow and we really couldn’t find our niche in the first half,” said McMenamin, one of NV/OT’s four senior starters. “I was frustrated. I couldn’t get a rebound in the first half and we all remember last year when [Tenafly] kicked us out of the state section in the first round. To see the score 12-10 at the end of the first half was a hard pill to swallow.”

McMenanim got right to work in the third quarter. She scored off the offensive glass three times in the first 2:37 of the second half to help kick start Old Tappan, which also sprung some defensive pressure, a departure from its usual half-court man-to-man, to eventually pull away to a 41-25 victory.

Michelle Koles scored 7 points to lead Tenafly.

“That was a rebounding clinic. That is the way to go after missed shots and Karli did an unbelievable job at it in the second half,” said Bob Silvestri, the Old Tappan assistant coach who jumped in on the post game interview to praise McMenamin. “The way we had it scored in the second half was that on all but one of our missed shots we got an offensive rebound and Karli was the force down there [in the lane].”

Throw in the fact that freshman Megan Reilly played one of her best games of the season, aggressively taking the ball to the basket and pushing it in transition, Old Tappan’s second half was full of passion, something that was lacking through the first 16 minutes.

“Bad shot selection and we really didn’t hit the glass. They were holding us to one shot and out every time down in the first half and that was a problem. The third quarter Karli did a great job hitting the glass and getting some putbacks, which is what we were missing,” said Old Tappan head coach Brian Dunn. “We went to the trap just to speed up the game a little bit and get things moving so that we could get a couple of more shot opportunities. We did a good job of increasing the tempo.”

Tenafly was still hanging around, trailing 19-16 when Alexandra Zigouras scored off a fastbreak and assist from Alyssa Sherry with 5:09 9 left in the third quarter, but Old Tappan closed the period with an 8-2 run that put it ahead 28-18 heading into the final eight minutes. Reilly, who got in early foul trouble, scored five points in the decisive run by attacking the basket and getting to the free throw line.

Megan Reilly played one of the best games of her freshman year, finishing with 11 points.

Reilly two free throws and two more by Alana Soumas put Old Tappan up 23-16 and Reilly’s coast-to-coast layup plus a free throw closed the third quarter scoring. When Abbey Fallon opened the fourth quarter with a three-pointer from the wing, Old Tappan had stretched its advantage to 31-18.

“Our game plan was to slow it up and in the first half I thought we did awesome. If we would have made some lay ups, we could have been up by six or eight points at halftime,” said Tenafly head coach Jeff Koehler. “But we have issues when we get behind. We don’t have the offensive firepower that a team like Old Tappan does. I thought we played with one of the best in the county for a half, but we have to finish it.”

Instead it was Old Tappan that finished off its seventh win of the season against four losses, an impressive stretch considering the competition that the Golden Knights have faced game in and game out in Division 1 of the NBIL.
Reilly (11 points) and McMenamin (10 points) were the only two players from either team to finish in double figures. Alex Radtezky added 8 points, Soumas had five, including one of the Knights two made three-pointers and Fallon had the other. Nichole Sullivan and Emily Russell also added field goals for the Old Tappan, which now gets to the crossover portion of its schedule leading up to the seeding meeting for the Bergen County Tournament on January 27.

Alex Zigouras scored five points for Tenafly, which fell to 7-4 on the season.

“The teams that we are going to play now are no slouches. Indian Hills is tough, [Northern] Highlands is pretty tough, but the difference is that not every practice is going to be cutthroat every day where you have to try to figure out how to win a game,” said Dunn. “We have some times to work on some things. We were in that cycle where we were playing every other day and every practice was focused on what we had to do to win the next game as opposed to what we have to do get better.”

Michelle Koles led Tenafly with 7 points, Jessie Shevins followed with 6, Zigouras and Haley Finnerty each scored five and Eryn Henderson had a field goal for the Tigers, who fell to 7-4 on the season, but held steady at 5-2 in the BCSL-American Division.

“Our issue is offense. We have one or two girls that can score and everybody else is kind of a role player,” said Koehler. “We talk about creating shots for ourselves every day and we have to continue to work on it. We actually played one-on-ones and two-on-twos the other day in practice just to get them creating. We are getting better at it and we’ll be OK as we go along here.”

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