Saturday, March 6, 2010

By Rich Barton
NJS.com Staff Writer

Andrea Innis scored 14 points and had 8 rebounds for Secaucus, which saw its season come to an end witha 37-25 loss to New Providence in the North 2, Group 1 state sectional semifinals.

SECAUCUS – After a lackluster first half, the Secaucus girls basketball team felt good about its chances of advancing to a section final when Shannon Waters’ layup gave the Patriots an 11-point lead with just seconds to play in the half against New Providence on Friday night. But in those final seconds, the Lady Pioneers got just the spark they needed. Connie Haggerty nailed a buzzer-beating three-pointer and hit another one on the first possession of the second half.

Before they knew it, all of the Patriots’ momentum was gone. They were never able to regain it and their hopes of returning to the section final gradually slipped through their fingers.

Haggerty was at it again in the fourth quarter with another backbreaking three-pointer, nailing her third and final long-range bomb to start the period. That snapped a tie and put New Providence ahead to stay as Secaucus’ season came to a close with a 37-25 defeat in the North 2, Group 1 semifinals.

“We had to clamp down on defense and Connie (Haggerty) hit some big shots for us in the second half to get us going,” said New Providence head coach Cap Pazderra. “We were waiting for the game to come to us in the first half. I thought it was one of our worst halves of the year and we were fortunate to only be down by eight. In the second half, we didn’t wait for the game to come to us; we went out and got it.”

Laura Gregory finished with 8 points for New Providence, which improved to 19-4 on the season.

Secaucus started to break the game open with a 12-3 run spanning the first and second quarters. Andrea Innis had seven points during the run, and Alyssa Lyngholm knocked down a three-pointer as Secaucus grabbed a 10-point lead, 16-6. Waters’ layup made it an 11-point lead with six seconds left in the half.

But Haggerty dribbled uncontested right down the court and nailed a wide-open three-pointer at the buzzer to trim the Pats’ lead down to eight at the half, 18-10.

“I knew I didn’t have a lot of time left and I had to get the shot off,” said Haggerty. “That shot and the one to start the third quarter gave me a lot of confidence to make some plays. We had to play with more confidence in the second half and not play scared to make a mistake. This has been so much fun and we want to keep the run going as long as we can.”

Haggerty opened the second half with another open look from three that she knocked down as New Providence scored the first 11 points of the half. Secaucus battled back to tie it on Ariana Simon’s basket to start the fourth quarter. But that basket was the Patriots’ last of the game and Haggerty answered back seconds later with a three-pointer that put the Pioneers ahead to stay.

Shannon Waters and just about all the rest of her teammates, will return next season for Secaucus.

“(Haggerty) hit three huge shots at big moments that we never recovered from,” said Secaucus head coach John Sterling. “We are a team that doesn’t have a lot of size and not as much depth as other teams we’ve played, so we rely on our hustle as the equalizer. Give New Providence a ton of credit in this game. They totally outhustled us in the second half and to be honest, they deserved to win with the way they closed us out and disrupted our offense.”

Haggerty led all players with 15 points for New Providence (19-4). Laura Gregory and Nan Tucker added 8 and 7 points, respectively. Innis finished with 14 points and eight rebounds to lead the way for Secaucus (21-5).

With just about the entire team returning next year, this is an experience that can the Patriots look back on and use as motivation to make a deeper run on year from now.

“We fell a bit short tonight, but we’ll be back,” added Sterling. “We have our whole team returning next year and these kids are really committed to working hard and getting better every day. They have been a pleasure to coach and I’m already excited about how good we could potentially be next year.”

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