Saturday, January 14, 2012

By Rich Barton
NJS.com Staff Writer

Lindsay Barretta spearheaded the Cresskill press that turned an early deficit into a 35-23 win over Park Ridge that kept the Cougars unbeaten.

CRESSKILL – Friday just seemed like one of those days where the ball just wouldn’t go in the basket and nothing seemed to go right, which is something that the Cresskill girls basketball team has not been used to this season. Instead of panicking against archrival Park Ridge, the senior-laden squad stayed patient and got back to the one fundamental principle that has made the Cougars so successful over the years, stifling full-court pressure.

It worked to perfection as the Cresskill got on track defensively and by the time Park Ridge scored another basket, the Cougars had the lead and were well on their way to another victory.

Emma Campbell scored six points in a 9-0 second-quarter run and Cresskill held Park Ridge without a field goal for over 11 minutes spanning the second and third quarters en route to their eighth consecutive victory to start the season, 35-23, over the Lady Owls at Cresskill High School.

“When things weren’t going our way, we kept our head up and played through them,” said Cresskill head coach Mike McCourt. “We got killed on the glass and simply outhustled in the first quarter and we had to turn that around just by making it harder to for them to bring it up the court.”

Samantha Bargmann scored 9 of Park Ridge's 23 points.

Park Ridge got off to a hot start thanks to center Samantha Bargmann. She scored on back-to-back putbacks to give her team a 7-1 lead and the Owls maintained the advantage into the second quarter before the Cougars ramped up their 1-2-2 press, led by Lindsay Barretta, and quickened the pace of the game. Campbell got a steal and a layup to give Cresskill its first lead since the opening minute at 12-11. She added two more steals and two more baskets as the Cougars opened up a 19-12 lead at the half.

“Park Ridge was doing a good job and making us play slower than we wanted to play, so we had to speed them up through our defense,” said Campbell, a senior captain. “It was important that we remained patient and stuck with what we’re successful doing. We didn’t want to bury ourselves to the point where it would be tough to come back.”

The Cougars were even stronger defensively coming out of the locker room to start the second half, holding the Owls without a field goal for another six minutes. Park Ridge had a chance to get back in it though in the waning seconds of the third quarter down seven and about to go in for a breakaway layup to cut the lead to five at the end of the quarter. Campbell thwarted that by not only racing all the way back to make a steal underneath the Cougars’ own basket, she tip-toed along the baseline while dribbling to stay inbounds, then threw a baseball pass to the other end of the court where teammate Jackie Azelby was waiting for a layup at the buzzer for a 23-14 lead. Azelby put the game on ice in the fourth quarter by going 5 of 6 at the free-throw line.

“Our nucleus is a bunch of sophomores and theirs are a bunch of seniors, and you saw the difference as the game wore on,” said Park Ridge head coach Tom Curry. “I thought we started off the game well, but one mistake led to another and we never really got back into a groove. We’re playing hard, we just have to execute on both ends more consistently. There is a difference between playing not to fail and playing to succeed. This was game personified that and it’s something we’ll learn from.”

Emma Campbell and Cresskill are now a perfect 8-0.

Ava Skinner led all players with 12 points and Azelby had 11 for Cresskill (8-0). Samantha Bargmann finished just shy of a double-double with nine points and nine rebounds for Park Ridge (5-6).

Cresskill is one of only five unbeaten teams left in North Jersey and has a good chance to stay undefeated heading into its January 31 showdown with also undefeated Emerson in a rematch of last year’s North 1, Group 1 title game won by Emerson. While the Cougars are happy to be undefeated, they are well aware that they have to improvement has to be made in order to stay that way.

“It’s real nice to be undefeated, but we have to keep working hard every day to get better,” added Campbell. “We like to test ourselves in practice every day so that when the big games come, we’re ready. We have a few tough games coming up this month and that will tell us what we need to improve on. It starts with defense and we build everything off of that.”

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