Hightstown tops CVC Pod B
HIGHTSTOWN » The Hightstown High varsity girls’ basketball team did not just view its 43-33 win over Hopewell Valley Friday in the Colonial Valley Conference Pod B championship game as a title claim. The Rams viewed it as an excellent sign for the future.
First-year head coach Jenna Marcus finally had her full complement of players available for its games in the two-day CVC Championships, brought on by the 2021’s shortened season due to the coronavirus pandemic.
And Hightstown took advantage, improving to 9-4 with a home game against Notre Dame (5-2) planned for 10 a.m. Saturday.
The return of 6-foot-3 freshman center Abby Misier from an injury and the return of 5-6 sophomore guard Kyla Glasser-Hyman from a month spent playing at Stuart Country Day (a turn of events which only could have hap- pened during 2021’s crazy COVID-19 season) gave a Rams’ team which had lost to the Bulldogs, 55-31, a week ago a different level of confidence.
“We wanted to come back and play them today,” Hightstown 5-5 junior forward Karly McKenna said. “We had a rough time against them in the first half last week. Today, we made sure we came out stronger and really played a full game.”
In fact, the Rams held Hopewell to 11 points in the first half yesterday, just as the Bulldogs had done to them Feb. 26.
Glasser-Hyman’s return not only gave Hightstown another ball handler, but it also gave the squad a solid defender to harass Hopewell Valley 5-6 senior guard Franki Gomez, the CVC’s leading scorer.
“Having Kyla back was a
big help,” McKenna said of Glasser-Hyman, who was the Rams’ leading scorer as a freshman. “She’s always aware of what’s going on around her, and she gets all of us involved.”
While Gomez and GlasserHyman shared game-high honors on this day with 10 points apiece, the home team was able to better spread around its production with sophomore guard Kelly McAleer scoring nine points on three 3-point field goals, while Misier, McKenna and junior guard Izzy Benitez added eight points each.
Gomez and junior forward Hailey Rowe (eight points) managed the visitors’ only baskets in a first quarter which saw Hightstown take an 11-4 lead as five different Rams scored.
Head coach Coleen Ross’ 7-7 club played better in the second quarter, yet still found itself trailing, 21-11, at halftime. The Bulldogs then matched Hightstown point for point in the second half.
“We knew they had gotten the one girl (Glasser-Hyman) back,” Hopewell 5-8 senior forward Acadia Kurtz said. “We definitely knew we had to talk, rebound and score more. We all wanted to step up because this was our last game. But they came out wanting revenge.”
Giving up seven inches to Misier, Kurtz did yeoman’s work of weak-side rebounding, while 5-11 sophomore Andie Cappucci and 6-1 freshman Kennedy Havens concentrated on the Rams’ big girl. University of Denver-bound Kurtz grabbed 13 rebounds, blocked two shots and had a steal to
give the Bulldogs a chance right down until the end, even adding four points of her own in the final two minutes to try to go out on top.
Instead, every time Hopewell Valley, which will only graduate three players this year, thought it was gaining ground, the Rams found an answer. In the fourth quarter, it was Benitez, who hit three of her four field goals down the stretch to send Hightstown home as Pod B champs with high hopes for the program’s future.