Thursday,
March 10, 2016
By Cory K. Doviak
NJS.com Editorial Director
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Kailyn Sytsma scored 11 points in the fourth quarter to open a cushion and Old Tappan would need it before holding on for a 56-53 win over Voorhees in the Group 3 state semifinals. |
FRANKLIN LAKES – It is well-documented that Northern Valley/Old Tappan is a senior-led team. Point guard Emily Crevani has started every game since she entered high school, Kailyn Sytsma is a dead-eye 3-point shooter, Kelsey McLaughlin guards the opponent’s best player, Maia Levenshus does the dirty work, Ashley Sullivan provides toughness off the bench and that is to say nothing of the contributions of the other two talented seniors Alexie Piccinich and Ariana Chipolone, who are both now injured.
But near the end of Wednesday night’s Group 3 state semifinal when the Golden Knights were looking for a way, any way, to hold off the Voorhees charge, it was two sophomores that teamed up for one of the biggest buckets of the night.
Voorhees, the North 2, Group 3 state sectional champion, had trailed by 10 with six-and-a-half minutes to play and normally, with the way the Knights play defense, that would have been plenty. But with the Vikings’ ability to create turnovers with their length and a tricky 1-3-1 trap, Old Tappan was not going to be able to take the air out of the ball and coast home. They would have to score to seal the victory and Alex George started at the high post with her team’s lead trimmed to three with just over 50 seconds left to play. She then sprinted to the low block and locked a defender on her back.
“In practice we work on that all the time, me sealing off and Sophie passing in or and we don’t get to show that a lot in games because we are secondary pieces,” said George. “But when we get an opportunity like when that one popped up, we had to make the most of it. Yes we are a team of seniors and they lead us, but we have legacy to live up to and we had to come through.”
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Sophomore Alex George finished with 19 points, none bigger than she scored on a layup with 48 seconds to play. |
Sophie Downey’s pass led George into open space and she converted the layup to bump the Old Tappan lead back up to five with 48 seconds to play. Crevani hit both ends of a one-and-one 22 seconds later as the first two times that Voorhees got to within one possession in the final minute Old Tappan answered right back. The last time came just seconds before the final buzzer in the Golden Knights’ 56-53 victory.
Before last season, Old Tappan had one just one state sectional title in the history of the girls basketball program and had never made it to overall championship game. Now they have won two straight section titles and are heading back to Toms River for the second straight year where they will get a rematch against Middletown South for the outright Group 3 state championship.
“My kids in pressure situations, they like to get the opportunities and step up. They are very unselfish, but in clutch spots they are going to step up and do what they have to do,” said Old Tappan head coach Brian Dunn. “I am proud of the way they play because that is….that is just guts.”
Voorhees showed that it had the stomach for the pressure packed game played in the crowded gym at Ramapo High School as well. The Vikings came out firing and had an 11-6 lead midway through the first quarter when Allie Best pulled up and hit a jumper. George scored back to back hoops in the middle of an 8-0 Old Tappan run that got the Knights going, but Voorhees established the fact that it had no intentions of playing a grind-it-out game where the first team to 35 points was going to win.
Old Tappan led 14-13 after the first quarter, but Payce Lang gave the Vikings the lead right back to open the second quarter and they were up 19-16 when Erin Jones’ rainbow 3-pointer fell through with 4:31 left in the first half. But as foul trouble started to mount on both sides, the offensive efficiency slowed and teams settled for a 22-all tie at the break.
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Allie Best scored a game-high 20 points for Voorhees, which finished the season with a 25-3 record. |
One of those in foul trouble was Sytsma, who scored eight first quarter points before leaving with her second foul and she lasted all of seven seconds upon her return as she was whistled for her third with 2:25 left in the first half. She proved her importance to the Old Tappan scheme by catching fire in the third period when she scored 11 points, 9 of them on three 3-pointers that put the Knights in the driver’s seat.
Sytsma’s first triple put Old Tappan up 27-22, the second made it 38-31 and the third came with 50 seconds left in the third quarter and gave the Knights their largest lead of the night at 43-31.
“Those three 3s broke our back because until then we were up to or down two, staying close and we were right in it. Number 22 [Sytsma] made those 3s and that kind of changed everything,” said Voorhees head coach Carmen Cook. “Our defense wasn’t good enough tonight, bottom line. We left open shooter. They are really good at moving the ball with 1 [Crevani] and then kicking it out. She is the best point [guard] we have seen all year.”
Levenshus hit a runner in the lane to put Old Tappan up 48-38 with 5:58 left to play and it was up 51-43 with 2:17 left when George made both ends of a one-and-one staring right into the rowdy student section behind the basket, but Voorhees refused to bail. Victoria Furka hit a 3-pointer and Allie Best got a good bounce on a jumper from the top of the key to make it 51-48 with 1:13 left.
It was 25 seconds later that the Old Tappan sophomores hooked up as Downey fed George for the all-important basket that stretched the lead back to 5.
“That was a good catch by Alex. She made and good play and finished and we really needed that,” said Downey, who made another key fourth hustle play that kept alive the possession that led to George’s two free throws. “I am not going to score a lot, that is not my job, but I do my best to try to set up other people for good shots whatever way I can.”
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Emily Crevani's two free throws with 26 seconds left iced the game for Old Tappan, which will get a rematch with Middletown South in the Group 3 state final this weekend in Toms River. |
Old Tappan had a chance to ice the game with 36 seconds left, but missed the front end of a one-plus-the-bonus and Voorhees then got two free throws from Best with 27 seconds left to make it 53-50 and the Vikings then used their final timeout.
The ball was inbounded to Crevani and there was no way she was giving it up. She was the one who was going to get to the foul line and she never had a doubt as to what the outcome would be.
“I came to the line saying there is no way I was missing them,” said Crevani, who will play at the University of Tampa next season. “I was nervous, but I knew it was going in because I went to that line and blocked everything out. If I didn’t make that one-and-one it would have made everything so much different because they were good 3-point shooters. I had to make them.”
Sytsma and George, who both battled foul trouble most of the way, tied for team-high honors with 19 points apiece and Crevani scored 9 of her 13 points in the second half. McLaughlin (3 points) and Levenshus made up the rest of the offense for the Golden Knights who pushed their record to 25-4.
Best finished with a game-high 20 points for Voorhees. Lange and Jones scored 12 apiece, Olivia Dirienz and Furka each had 3 and Dana Croughan had the other point for the Vikings, who won league, county and state sectional titles in a 25-3 season.
But it is Old Tappan moving on to Toms River for the second straight year, pretty amazing for any program, especially so for a team that has been hit so hard by injury.
“To advance this far you have to be on your game every day for a week-and-half. It is not easy and the competition keeps getting tougher,” said Dunn. “To be able to do it, we’ll enjoy it again and see if we can make a run at it.
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