January
20, 2007
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| Sam Sintra made a jumpshot and a layup in a 17-second span to give Old Tappan just enough space to pull out a 29-24 win over Northern Highlands on Friday night. | |
OLD TAPPAN -- The difference is slim between the Old Tappan and Northern Highlands girls basketball teams. They had met twice already this season with the two games decided by a total of 10 points -- three and seven-point Old Tappan wins. A look at the scorebook from matchup No. 3 on Friday night was even closer than that.
Old Tappan made nine field goals; Northern Highlands made eight, but had the game’s only three three-pointers. The free throw attempts were even at 15 and neither team had a fastbreak basket through the first three quarters of a game that was tied at 11 at halftime.
“They played very hard on defense and they did a good job of limiting our second chances. We had very few offensive putbacks,” said Old Tappan head coach Brian Dunn. “They did a good job of slowing the tempo and making sure there were no transition baskets, and that kind of limited us offensively. And I think we gave them the same problems.”
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| Julia Cohan scored 6 points for Northern Highlands. |
The outcome would obviously be decided by free throws made or by a turnover in a key spot that might open the door to any easy basket, a rare occurrence between two teams that get after it on the defensive end and contest every shot in the halfcourt set.
With her team up by just one point with just over three minutes to go in the game, Old Tappan point guard Sam Sinatra came up with a loose ball after a traffic jam at the top of the key and took to dribbles to her right before hitting a pull up jumper. She then dispossessed the ball handler after the ensuing inbounds pass and went in for a layup, the only fastbreak basket for either team, with 2:44 to play.
The four-point run gave Old Tappan a five-point lead and just enough offense to pull off a 29-24 win, its tenth of the season against just two losses.
“That was definitely the turning point,” said Sinatra, a junior who transferred in to Old Tappan this season after playing on Pascack Hills’ sectional final team a year ago. “I made a couple mistakes with turnovers out there myself, but I tried not to let it get to me. I just tried to stay in the game and make a play because we needed it.”
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| Chanel Van Dyke made 4 of her 6 fourth quarter free throws to help Old Tappan seal the win. |
Neither team led by more than three-points through the first three quarters. Highlands led 5-2 after the first quarter, had a 9-6 lead when Xanthi Tsamutalis made a three-pointer two minutes into the second quarter and went up 11-8 on a Julia Cohan basket 1:26 before halftime.
Alex Radetzky’s conventional three-point play tied the game at the break and the lead changed hands five times in the third quarter, which ended with Old Tappan ahead 18-16.
Highlands had its chance when it held the Lady Knights to just a single made free throw through the first 4:59 of the fourth quarter and had three trips to the free throw line while trailing 19-18. But the Highlanders missed five straight free throws, the last on the front end of a one-and-one, and Sinatra then made the short-jumper to get Old Tappan rolling in the right direction down the stretch.
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| Highlands' Xanthi Tsamutalis had two of the game's three three-pointers. |
“They got up by five when that girl [Sinatra] made the two straight baskets and they did what that had to do,” said Highlands head coach John Smith. “We battle. We’ve played them three time and we’ve lost by 3, 7 and 5 [points].”
Sinatra’s two baskets gave Old Tappan some breathing room and the Knights put the game away at the free throw line. OT was 11 of 15 from the stripe in the game and 7 of 9 in the fourth quarter, while Northern Highlands was just 5 of 15 in the game and 3 of 9 in the second half. Old Tappan’s Chanel Van Dyke made 4 of her 6 fourth quarter foul shots, including three in a row inside the final two minutes.
“It wasn’t easy against their defense, so we had to get our points at the line,” said Van Dyke, a junior who finished with seven points. “It was really physical out there both ways and we had to find a way to pull it out at the end.”
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| Lisa Jaris had five points as Old Tappan improved to 10-2 on the season. |
Although Old Tappan has swept the first three games against Highlands (7-6), two in the regular season and one at the Joe Poli Tournament, the teams may not have seen the last of each other. They are both in the North 1, Group 3 state section and it is possible that they could see each other again in the Bergen County Tournament, which both have already qualified for.
Tsamutalis led the Highlanders with 9 points, including two three-pointers, while Cohan chipped in with 6. Sinatra (10 points) was the only player on either side to finish in double digits and Radetzky finished with five points for Old Tappan. Both teams’ leading scorers neutralized each other as OT’s Lisa Jaris and Highlands’ Taylor Shea finished with 5 and 4 points, respectively.
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