WW-PN defeats Nottingham for third straight win
HAMILTON » The West WindsorPlainsboro High North and Nottingham High varsity girls basketball teams have been experiencing similar roller-coaster seasons in 2017-18.
Both entered their Colonial Valley Conference Valley Division meeting Monday at the Galaxy with identical 7-9 records.
However, the visiting Northern Knights have been on a little more of an upswing of late and saw that continue with a 53-37 win over the Northstars.
WW-P North pulled within a game of .500 by winning their third consecutive game and fourth in their last five.
“We went through a little bit of a rough stretch of games against good teams from which we tried to come out a better team by our next practice,” Northern Knights firstyear head coach Frank Moore said. “It’s games like this where we could struggle if we hadn’t learned from those other games.”
The most notable difference from the games against some other opponents was that WW-P North guard/forward Jordan Brown was the best player on the floor. The 5-foot-8 junior scored 22 points to lead three Northern Knights in double figures.
“It depends how we come out each game,” Brown said. “If we keep our intensity through four quarters, we’ll do O.K.”
After scoring seven of her team’s 20 points in the opening quarter, Brown kept her team pushing forward. Emily Garron and Nadia Elhossieni added 10 points apiece to provide a little more balance on the floor for the visitors.
Nottingham, meanwhile, had trouble getting shots to fall. Trailing, 32-23, at intermission, Northstars senior guard Liz Kerekes hit a 3-point field goal to open scoring in the third quarter and trim the lead to six points. But WW-P North ran off 11 unanswered points to close the quarter.
“We started flat in this game,” Nottingham junior guard Giuliana Pocino said. “We were in a hole, but usually we can dig ourselves out of those.”
The Northstars turned up their intensity in the fourth quarter to cut into the Northern Knights’ 43-26 lead, but could not get closer than 10 points. Pocino scored a team-high 10 points, and senior swing Madison Diaz backed her with nine points.
“We’ve got to show up ready to play every day,” Nottingham seventh-year head coach Lauren Adams said. “We can’t pick and choose when we want to play.”
Laresch 1-0-2, Garron 4-2-10, Sangal 0-0-0, JBrown 7-6-22, Russell 2-1-7, Elhossieni 5-0-10, St. Amour 1-0-2, Murphy 0-0-0, Babu 0-0-0.
20-9-53.
Totals —
Diaz 4-0-9, Kerekes 3-0-7, Haas 1-1-4, Pocino 4-2-10, Liles 0-0-0, Penix 3-1-7.
15-4-37.
Totals — WW-PN (8-9) 20 Nottnghm(7-10) 10 12 13 11 3 10 — 11 — 53 37