Sunday, December 28, 2008

By Cory K. Doviak
NJS.com Editorial Director

Point guard Brittany O'Keefe finished with 18 points and six assists as Rutherford reached the Joe Poli Tournament final with a 57-36 win over Holy Angels on Sunday afternoon.

HILLSDALE -- When Rutherford girls basketball coach Nick DiBari saw what his team was up against in a stacked field at the Joe Poli Holiday Basketball Tournament, he adjusted his expectations downward. DiBari wanted to get out of Pascack Valley High School with at least one win and with some of his team's confidence still in tact. But just a couple of days later, DiBari's Bulldogs have put themselves in position to walk away with much more.

After falling behind Holy Angels in the semifinals on Sunday afternoon, Rutherford showed that it is more than a nice little public school team, but instead it is legitimately one of the best teams in Bergen County.

After withstanding Holy Angels blistering start in which it hit just about everything it threw at the basket in the first quarter, the Bulldogs ripped off a 30-6 run that took them from behind 20-9 to ahead 27-23 at halftime to in front 39-25 midway through the third quarter on the way to a 57-36 win and a spot in Tuesday’s tournament final against IHA.

Holy Angels sophomore Nicole Pepe scored all of her team high 11 points in the first quarter.

“They could have went away at 20-9, but they didn’t. They stuck in there and I am so impressed by our kids right now,” said DiBari, whose team improved to 3-0 on the season. “After that first quarter by them we were saying on the bench that there was no way that they could keep shooting like that. We said it to the kids, they just kept on defending and it worked out for us.”

In the final three quarters, Rutherford had it all working and all of it was running through Taylor Wootton, the senior forward who was too much for Holy Angels to handle on both ends of the floor. After Holy Angels sophomore Nicole Pepe got off for 11 points in the first quarter, DiBari switched Wootton on to her defensively and she held Pepe in check the rest of the way.

When Holy Angels tried to pressure the ball, Wootton helped senior point guard Brittany O’Keefe break the pressure as she is nimble enough to dribble through traffic and tall enough to throw unobstructed passes over a defense’s best attempts at trapping. If AHA played off Wootton, she made shots from the outside. When they pressed up, she found open teammates or retreated to the post where she could play with her back to the basket. She also rebounded well, blocked three shots and cleaned up around the Rutherford bench when the game was over.

Taylor Wootton did it all for Rutherford, which improved to 3-0 on the season.

“I get double teamed a lot, but I have the confidence in my teammates that I can kick it out and they can make shots,” said Wootton, who has already accepted a full ride to Drexel University. “In the first half we were all exhausted, but we got used to the pace and then we were able to run right with them. It was fast, but that was OK with us.”

It suited the Angels fine to in the early going as, coming off their overtime upset of host Pascack Valley in the opening round on Friday, they came out guns a-blazin’ Pepe was the lead player in the early barrage and Jaclyn Jerkovich added two three pointers in the first quarter as it seemed AHA would never miss. Holy Angels put up 20 points in the first quarter, but when the momentum shifted, it could never get it back.

“That is the way the season is probably going to be. We’ll win some games that we probably shouldn’t win and we’ll lose some that we probably shouldn’t lose,” said AHA head coach Sue Liddy, acknowledging the perils of having three sophomores in the starting lineup. “We just couldn’t run any kind of an offense and I have to tip my hat to Taylor [Wootton]. She had a sensational game.”

Jaclyn Jerkovich, one of AHA's three sophomore starters, finished with 8 points.

Those three sophomore starters — Pepe (11 points), Jerkovich (8 points) and Dakota DeBellis (8 points) — combined to score 27 of Holy Angels’ 36 points, but AHA could not maintain its torrid start as it scored just three points in the second quarter and 13 total in the second half in falling to 2-2 on the season.

Meanwhile, Rutherford’s complimentary players gave Wootton all the help she needed and made the defense pay for its added attention. Wootton posted a game high 19 points and O’Keefe was solid at the point as she scored 18 points to go along with six assists. Nicole Leonard filled the lanes on the break and scored 11 points while Kaitlyn Galari added six points and Priscilla Moposita rounded out the scoring with 3 points.

In some ways Rutherford has nothing to prove. It is the two-time defending BCSL-American Division champions and is the odds on favorite to make it three in a row this season and has been to three straight state sectional finals.

But in other ways, the Bulldogs are still bucking for respect as they have come up on the short end in the section final three straight times, and when they have run into higher profile programs in the Bergen County Tournament’s later rounds, they have not fared well. Although they have gotten deep in into quality tournaments, they are still looking to break through and win one.

Nicole Leonard chipped in with 12 points for Rutherford, which will play IHA in the final on Tuesday.

They will have a shot against IHA on Tuesday, not bad for the lone Bergen County school in the talent packed Joe Poli Tournament that draws all of its players from inside the borders of a single township.

“I think it is great that we could show people in a tournament like this that we can really play,” said O’Keefe, a senior and three-year starter. “This just shows that we can play with anybody. We might be just a small town from the southern part of North Jersey, but we feel like we can compete in the states and the counties.”

Wootton seconded that thought.

“We are the only school here that doesn’t recruit or have different towns going to our school,” said Wootton. “We are a little town, but we try to do the best with what we got.”

FOR MORE PHOTOS FROM THIS GAME OR TO BUY A COLLECTOR'S PRINT OF THIS GAME STORY, PLEASE VISIT 4FeetGrafix.com.