Monday,
February 21, 2011
By Cory K. Doviak
NJS.com Editorial Director
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Freshman Izzy McMahon made four
3-pointers and scored 12 huge points for IHA, which ended Ramapo two-year run as county champion with a 40-31 win on Sunday at Ramapo College. |
MAHWAH -- The later rounds of the Bergen County Girls Basketball Tournament is where a previously unknown player can make a name for herself. Played in a college gym in front of a packed house, a good showing can turn just a name on a roster into a player that everyone is talking about. Bergen County…introducing Izzy McMahon.
The Immaculate Heart Academy freshman from Clarkstown, New York, knocked down four 3-pointers, all of them crucial, in a 40-31 win over Ramapo, the two-time defending Bergen County champion, in the semifinal round on Sunday at The Bill Bradley Sports and Recreation Center on the campus of Ramapo College.
McMahon made two of her 3-pointers in the second quarter when Ramapo was threatening to pull away, she made one in the third quarter that brought the Blue Eagles to within two points and her last, with 5:07 remaining in the game, kicked off the 10-0 run that IHA used to turn a five-point deficit into a five-point lead and turned the game in the Blue Eagles’ favor for good.
“Coach [Steve Silver] always tells me that if I have the open shot that I have the green light to take it,” said McMahon. “It’s definitely an honor to be on this team as a freshman on varsity in this big arena with so many fans. I’ve never been in this position before.”
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Ramapo's Sarah Halejian scored a team-high 12 points in her final tournament game. |
McMahon was somewhat of a luxury for Silver at the start of the season, a freshman who could step off the bench, make a shot (or not) and gain experience in small doses. But when Ashley Morella, who was IHA’s deep threat for the past two seasons and the first part of this one, left the team back in January; McMahon’s training wheels were taken off.
“I thought when we lost Ashley that our margin for error went down a big notch because Ashley bailed us out of so many tough spots with her shooting,” said Silver. “But Izzy plays so under control and I would say that it was about three weeks ago that she got comfortable and turned into a sophomore.”
When IHA beat Ramapo back on January 16, it was the Eagles’ all-county center Raquel Scott who did much of the damage. With Ramapo resorting to a zone that neutralized IHA’s interior scoring, McMahon became that much more important, especially when Ramapo got off to a fast start.
After giving up the first five points of the game, Ramapo ran off nine straight points before settling for a 9-7 lead after the first quarter. A Sarah Halejian 3-pointer and a putback by Deanna Devonshuk to open the second quarter gave the Raiders a 14-7 lead and they opened their largest lead of the game at 17-8 in style. Sam Klie found Kasey Woetzel as the trailer on a fastbreak and Woetzel, Ramapo’s junior center, made a layup, a free throw and hung the second foul on Scott with 4:54 left in the first half.
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IHA senior Tara Wilk put the game away from the foul line. |
Then McMahon answered with her first 3-pointer. After Woetzel scored off a lobbed entry pass to give Ramapo an eight-point lead, McMahon made her second triple and Tiffany Weisbecker made a 3-pointer to draw IHA to within 21-17 at the half.
Ramapo let an opportunity, actually a couple of them, slip away at the start of the third quarter. The Raiders had six free throw attempts in the opening 1:59 of the second half, but made just one of them and when McMahon made a 3-pointer with 5:34 left in the third, the Eagles were trailing by just a two-point margin at 22-20.
Despite scoring just six points in the third quarter and missed too many free throws, Klie’s defensive rebound and coast-to-coast layup gave the Raiders a 28-23 lead heading into the final eight minutes.
Halejian, the second leading scorer in the history of the Bergen County girls basketball tournament and who has made Ramapo College look like her own back yard over the past three seasons, made her final tournament field goal with 6:01 left in the game. Her layup from the left across the lane and under the outstretched arm of Scott gave Ramapo a 30-25 lead. But then McMahon stepped up again and IHA quickly closed the gap.
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Ramapo's Kasey Woetzel scored 9 first half points. |
She made a 3-pointer from the corner and, after a Ramapo turnover, drew the defense to her before dumping an entry pass to Scott, whose layup tied the score at 30 with 4:29 to play. A Ramapo time out was followed by a turnover and Tara Wilk made it hurt with a 3-pointer from the wing that gave the Eagles the lead for good.
Samantha Wilkes’ only field goal of the game came on a drop step that stretched the IHA lead to 35-30 and Wilk put the game away by making all four of her free throws in the final 1:18 as IHA ended Ramapo’s run of county championship two wins shy of a three-peat.
“In the fourth quarter, coach made a great move and we went back to our old spread offense and it opened up the whole game for us. We changed it in the middle of the fourth quarter and that was when we made our big run,” said Wilk, a senior who was a part of four straight county champion soccer teams also playing under Silver. “Experience in big games is incalculable, that is a vocabulary word from this week, and we have so many experienced players that it gives that little something, that composure you need to win these kinds of games.”
McMahon and Wilk each finished with 12 points. All of McMahon’s came from behind the arc and Wilk scored 7 of hers in the fourth quarter. Scott added 6 points, Weisbecker finished with 5, Colleen O’Connell made a field goal and a free throw and Wilkes’ fourth quarter bucket rounded out the scoring for IHA, which overcame an 8 of 19 performance at the free throw line to improve to 22-0 on the season. The Eagles will play Holy Angels, a team that it has beaten three times already this season, in the county final next Saturday at Ramapo College in a 2:00 p.m. start.
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Raquel Scott and IHA will play Holy Angels in the Bergen County Tournament final on Saturday. |
“It is a special season, I am enjoying it immensely and I am hopeful that the kids are and I think they are. As the season has gone along, we have not been avoiding discussing [the undefeated start], but it just has not been a topic of conversation,” said Silver. “It’s probably what I am most proud of is that we have been mostly focused on our next game and our next practice. I think that has to continue.”
Ramapo’s run as county champ will not continue and it really is the end of an era in the Bergen County Tournament. In addition to Halejian’s brilliance since she first played in the tournament as a freshman, this senior class also comprised of Klie, Devonshuk and Erin O’Hagan have certainly made their mark. The seniors combined to score 22 of Ramapo’s 31 points one Sunday with Halejian’s 12 leading the way. But it was at the free throw line where the Raiders (19-3) faltered as they made just 3 of their 13 attempts as a team and just 2 of 12 in the second half.
“As far as the scouting report went, my kids did exactly what I asked them to do. We outplayed them for three quarters, but games are four quarters and in the fourth quarter we went ice coal and were horrendous from the foul line. Give IHA the credit, and Izzy McMahon made some big shots,” said Ramapo head coach Sandy Gordon. “It’s tough. It’s said because, as I just told those kids in the locker room, we are not used to being done right now. We are used to playing on the last day of the tournament. They have nothing to be ashamed of, it was a great run for this senior group and we have a lot of basketball ahead of us.”
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