Angie Tirado scored 11 of her 17 points after halftime for NV/Demarest, which upset No. 2 Teaneck, 52-42, in the semifinals of the Bergen County Tournament.
OLD TAPPAN – Northern Valley/Demarest head coach Jenny Jurjevic loathes the zone defense, but getting torched in transition early in Sunday’s Bergen County Tournament semifinal against second-seeded Teaneck and with foul woes stacking up, her options were limited.
“I don’t know what happened, I don’t know if it is the Jeff Jasper in me, but I hate the 2-3 zone and it took me most of the whole [first] half to go to it,” said Jurjevic, referring to the current Pascack Valley head coach who also coach her in high school. “We had two kids with three fouls in the first half and then we picked up a quick fourth foul in the third quarter. I finally went to it; packed it in.”
Demarest was nearly run off the court in the opening quarter. With Teaneck flying around the 3-point line, contesting shots, jumping passing lanes and turning defense into transition offense the Highwaywomen opened a 10-point lead by the end of the first quarter and led by 14 when Lexi Carnegie turned consecutive steals into consecutive layups 42 seconds into the second quarter.
Drastic times called for drastic measures, Jurjevic switched to a zone and implored her team to change its offensive approach.
“They do a really good job of playing defense outside the 3[-point arc]. You see a lot of branches, a lot of hands, they are up in the passing lanes and we did not do a good job in the first half adjusting to that. We were not going back door and it led to a lot of turnovers,” said Jurjevic. “At halftime we focused on what we put in yesterday; rear cut, get away from the 3-point line and attack the cup.”
Jurjevic’s team had already started to turn the corner as it closed the first half on a 9-2 run to creep within 7 points after a half in which it was outplayed, and then turned things around drastically after the intermission.
Demarest got as close as two points in the third quarter, got even a for the first time since 0-0 with 6:26 lead in the fourth quarter then owned the final two minutes of a 51-42 victory that puts the program in the Bergen County final for the first time ever.
Teaneck junior Lexi Carnegie finished just two steals away from a triple-double.
That is quite a contrast from its championship opponent as top-seeded Saddle River Day, a 54-53 winner over Old Tappan, is looking for a ninth straight Bergen County title. This year’s champ will be crowned on Wednesday night after a 7:30 start at Fair Lawn High School.
“We fought back. We are a team that fights. We were the underdog team and we just had to stay together,” said Gabriella MittELman, Demarest’s junior point guard who made two baskets in the span on 27 seconds that turned the game in her team’s favor for good.
Shaely Espinal made two free throws with 3:00 left in the fourth quarter to give Teaneck a 42-38 lead and it was impossible to know at the time that those would be the last points that the Highwaywomen would score.
The first of Mittelman’s two huge buckets was the answer to those free throws, a 3-pointer from the wing that made it a 1-point game with 2:06 to play and it also forced a Teaneck timeout. The Highwaywomen proceeded to turn the ball over shortly after returning to the court and the right-handed Mittelman flipped in a lefty layup to give Demarest its first lead of the entire game, 43-42, with 1:39 remaining.
Another Teaneck turnover led to two Mittelman free throws to cap a personal 7-0 run with 46 seconds left and two missed free throws at the other end really put the Highwaywomen up against it, especially after senior Angie Tirado made four straight from the stripe to extend Demarest’s lead to an insurmountable 49-42 with 21 second remaining.
“It was just a lot of focus. You have to quiet the noise, quiet the crowd trying to mess with you and get comfortable up there [at the free throw line],” said Tirado, a senior who scored 11 of her team-high 17 points in the second half and 8 in the fourth quarter. “There was no stress. I didn’t feel it.”
Sophomore Deana Finkelstein scored 7 of her 11 points in the second half or Demarest, which will play 8x defending champion Saddle River Day on Wednesday in Fair Lawn,
Tirado, Mittelman (16 points) and Deana Finkelstein (11 points) all finished in double figures. Of their combined 44 points, 29 of them came in the dominant second half. Finkelstein, the closest facsimile that Demarest has to a post player, came on strong after the break against Teaneck’s talented and athletic front line.
“I focus on working really hard. I make boxing out a priority and it is easier when you know that your teammates are in help [defense]. I just do my best to communicate on every single play everything that is happening so we are all on the same page,” said Finkelstein, a sophomore and the rare (nowadays) 3-sport athlete who is also a standout in volleyball and softball. “At the end we could feel them getting flustered. They kept coming at us, we kept getting stops and we were not going to turn back.”
Lexi Carnegie, a junior who surpassed the 1,000-point milestone on a free throw early in the first quarter, finished just two steals shy of a triple-double. She finished with a game-high 19 points, 12 rebounds and 8 steals, but only four of her points came in the second half against the Demarest zone that stymied Teaneck in the half court. Espinal and Aniya Celestin each finished with 6 points, Leayana Dorville finished with 5, Jillian Carter made two first quarter field goals and Imani McKenzie’s fourth quarter hoops rounded out the scoring for Teaneck (16-6), which shot just a combined 8 of 19 from the free throw line and 2 for 8 in the second half.
Caitlyn Fontana’s two first half field goals and Ava Francica’s third quarter 3-pointer rounded out the scoring for Demarest, whose best ever season now sports a 20-2 record, a No. 1 seed in the upcoming North 1, Group 3 state sectional playoffs and a spot in the county final.
“It’s special. We are making history,” said Mittelman. “Each game it is something different, something new.”
FOR MORE PHOTOS FROM THIS EVENT PLEASE CLICK HERE. TO BUY A COLLECTOR'S PRINT OF THIS STORY PLEASE VISIT 4-FeetGrafix.com.
