Saturday,
March 7, 2015
By Cory K. Doviak
NJS.com Editorial Director
|
Ariana Chipolone scored a team-high 20 points, including 9 in the first quarter to help Old Tappan get off to a fast start in a 56-42 win over Montville in the North 1, Group 3 state sectional quarterfinals. |
OLD TAPPAN – A legend can grow quickly in the state tournament. A couple of weeks ago, not many people that follow Bergen County girls basketball on a casual basis had ever heard of Kelly O'Reilly. But then the junior and Montville's all-time leading scorer, went out and scored 37 points, grabbed 11 rebounds and had six assists in an opening round win in Mahwah and suddenly O'Reilly's name was on everybody's lips. The talk was whether any of the teams in North 1, Group 3, which includes most of Bergen County's public school powerhouses, could stop her.
Getting to see her up close, O'Reilly is certainly as advertised, but Northern Valley/Old Tappan had an answer. Junior Kelsey McLaughlin drew the task of guarding her and the rest of the Golden Knights provided close support. Old Tappan limited O'Reilly, shutdown the rest of the Mustangs and led just about wire to wire in a 56-42 win in Friday afternoon's North 1, Group 3 state sectional quarterfinal. Second-seeded Old Tappan moves on with a quick turnaround to Saturday's semifinal where it will host No. 3 Northern Highlands, which knocked off High Point.
“[O'Reilly] is a really talented player, but going into the game [Coach Brian] Dunn told me that it was not just up to me to guard her, the whole team had to step up and really play great team defense,” said McLaughlin, part of Old Tappan's deep junior class. “It's easy to play on the ball defense because you just have to worry about the player in front of you. It is not easy to be one of my teammates who have to watch the ball, look to help and watch their own girl as well and they did a great job doing that today.”
|
Junior Kelly O'Reilly, Montville's all-time leading scorer, worked hard for all of her team-high 20 points. |
With McLaughlin making O'Reilly work for every touch, let alone every shot, it was Old Tappan's leading scorer, junior Ariana Chipolone, who stole the offensive show from the start. Chipolone scored nine first quarter points, including all seven in a game-opening 7-2 run.
“I just knew that we had to come strong because when we do we get that momentum and get hyped up,” said Chipolone, who plays on the same AAU team as O'Reilly. “We knew that she could score and we had to match that and get a lead. Kelsey did a great job on defense, I am so proud of her, and that helped us take the early lead. It was the kind of start we needed.”
Montville's Jenni Lake made two free throws with 3:47 left in the first quarter to cap a 7-2 run the other way and tie the game at 9, but that was the high water mark for the Mustangs, who trailed the rest of the way after Kailyn Seitsma made a 3-pointer from the corner.
Old Tappan closed the first quarter with six straight points to take a 15-9 lead, Seitsma hit a 3 from the wing to open the second quarter and Emily Crevani added a rainbow triple of her own to put NV/OT up 21-9 and the Knights managed the lead the rest of the way with just a couple of tense moments.
|
Emily Crevani scored 17 points for Old Tappan and went 5 of 7 from the free throw line. |
Old Tappan led 30-18 at the break and 34-22 after Chipolone scored in transition off an assist from Crevani, but Montville made a bid to get back in it. The Mustangs snuck to within single digits at 38-29 at the end of the third quarter and when O'Reilly hit her first field goal of the second half, a 3-pointer to open the fourth, Montville was within 38-32 with still 7:49 to play in the game.
Enter Alexie Piccinich, the junior who does a lot of the dirty work for Old Tappan from rebounding to taking charges to help defense. She can also score when asked and she stepped out and hit a 10-footer and a free throw on consecutive trips to squash Montville's momentum.
“I wasn't really present on the offensive end in the first half, so I felt like at that time early in the fourth quarter I had to step it up,” said Piccinich. “The shots were there and I just had to be confident.”
Chipolone scored off an inbounds play and McLaughlin made a layup of a nice find by Seitsma to push the lead back into double digits with 4:48 to go and Old Tappan knows how to put a game away. The Knights moved the ball and kept possession for 1:33 before forcing Montville to commit is sixth team foul and then held again to get in the bonus with Chipolone making one of two with 2:39 to go to make it a 46-34 game.
|
Jane Beiermeister was one of three Montville starters to score 6 points. |
Piccinich then found McLaughlin for a backdoor layup and at that point, with 2:02 remaining in the game, McLaughlin and O'Reilly each had four second half points. O'Reilly went on to score four more in the final minute-plus to finish with a team-high 20, but she was canceled out by Chipolone's team-high 20 and Old Tappan's supporting cast was the more productive.
Crevani provided secondary punch with 17 points, including making 5 of her 7 free throw attempts and all four tries in the fourth quarter. Seitsma scored all 6 of her points from behind the arc, Piccinich contributed 5 points, McLaughlin had the two fourth quarter field goals and Ashley Sullivan and Kayla Loughlin split the other four points for the Golden Knights. No other Mustang reached double figures as Amanda Gorski, Jane Beiermeister and Lake all finished with 6 points and Lauren Minardi had the other 4 for Montville.
So now it is on to the state semifinals where Old Tappan will meet Northern Highlands, a team with which it split the regular season series. The winner heads to the final against either Ramapo or Northern Valley/Demarest, which were also winners on Friday.
“It's a tough bracket full of good teams,” said Dunn. “We got ourselves one more home game and we'll see what happens.”
CLICK HERE FOR MORE PHOTOS FROM THIS GAME. TO BUY A COLLECTOR'S PRINT
OF THIS STORY, PLEASE VISIT 4FeetGrafix.com. |