Thursday, December 24, 2009

By Rich Barton
NJS.com Staff Writer

BAYONNE – Ever since March when the two teams met in the HCIAA Coviello-Division Championship game, the Lincoln High School girls’ basketball team was looking for another shot at Bayonne. The Lady Lions came up on the short end in last year’s de facto Hudson County championship game and, with Bayonne again figuring to be among the county’s top teams, Lincoln was looking to prove that it had taken another step forward as a program.

But this Bayonne team is not only looking to retain its county title, it is looking to move into the upper echelon of teams in all of North Jersey. Something had to give when the teams met last on Wednesday night and it took Bayonne just two minutes to show its is still the class of Hudson County.

Tara Flynn set the pace scoring five points during a 9-0 run to start the game. Bayonne never looked back and used a balanced attack offensively to cruise to a 51-34 victory at Korpi Arena.

“We wanted to come out and put them on their heels in the first minute,” said Flynn, a junior guard. “Lincoln wants to run up-and-down the floor. We had to use that against them and force them into turnovers. We made a nice run to start and that let us relax and allowed us to play our game.”

Flynn scored just seven points, but seemed to have her hand in every phase of the game. She nailed a three-pointer to open the scoring and had a lay-up to cap the early 9-0 spurt.

The lead was up to double-digits by the end of the first quarter when Lincoln had a chance to make up ground as two of Bayonne’s leading scorers, Lisa Rovatsos and Connie Hayes, went to the bench with two fouls each early in the second quarter. The replacements for those two players not only held the fort, but helped Bayonne increase its lead.
Kaitlin Gallagher and Luisa Montalvo each provided valuable minutes as the Bees stretched their lead to 33-15 by halftime.

Lincoln was able to get good shots when it got into an offense, but it was not able to do that often enough against a stifling Bayonne defense and never really got on track. The Bees’ lead never dipped below 14 points in the second half.

“Our guards are young and it showed,” said Lincoln head coach Tommie Best. “Turnovers killed us tonight and have been a problem for us so far. I think our guard play will improve as they get more experience. But we have to improve because we will struggle against the better teams if we turn the ball over like we did tonight.”

Gallagher scored a career-high 10 points to lead Bayonne (3-0). Flynn dished out eight assists, and Sam Maggio added six points, six steals, and four assists. Hayes and Kerry Kosikawski each had eight points, while Montalvo came off the bench to score seven.

Center Zierra Williams was the lone bright spot for Lincoln (2-1). She notched game-highs of 18 points and eight rebounds to go with three steals and two blocks.

Now that there is no more HCIAA, there will be an open Hudson County Tournament for the first time this year that will allow all of the former HCIAA-Seglio Division teams as well as former HCIAA outsiders like Harrison, Kearny and Secaucus to compete for a true county championship. It also gives Bayonne the motivation to win the first true Hudson County title and go on to make waves in the state tournament and to gain some wider recognition.

A chance to do just that will come next week at the Indian Hills Holiday Tournament in Oakland. The Bees could possibly face North Jersey powerhouse teams such as Paterson Catholic and Teaneck. While they look forward to the challenge, Bayonne head coach Jamie Turner knows there is a lot of work to be done before the Bees can be put in that class of elite teams in North Jersey.

“I thought we started off strong tonight, real strong, but we still have a long way to go,” said Turner. “On the positive, we played a great first half and got a ton of production off the bench from Luisa (Montalvo) and Kaitlin (Gallagher). But we had ten turnovers in the third quarter and that will never fly against the state’s best. Any win is a nice win and I think we have the talent to play with and beat some very good teams, but we have to do a better job on the mental aspect and take care of the ball much better than we did tonight or next week is going to be a long week.”

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