L’ville chasing fifth place at Peddie Tourney

HIGHTSTOWN » Anna O’Keefe may only be a sophomore with the Lawrenceville School varsity girls’ basketball team, but she can already see areas where the Big Red could use to get stronger.

One is with its ball control, which, on a squad with eight guards, is something L’ville should probably be doing better. Another is getting its five interior players more involved.

As a 5-foot-6 guard herself, O’Keefe is eager to help, and has been for head coach Grey Simpson’s club.

Her nine points Saturday made her the team’s second-leading scorer as the Big Red posted their second win of the season, rolling to a 46-7 victory over Maryland’s St. James on the second day of the Peddie School Tip-Off Tournament at the Erik B. Hanson Field House in the Ian H. Graham Athletic Center.

By virtue of its win, Lawrenceville (2-3) will get to place in Sunday’s 9 a.m. Fifth-place game on Peddie’s Court A versus St. Benedict’s Prep (1-1). The host school will meet St. James, both 0-2, in the 9 a.m. seventhplace game on Court B.

“We have a really young team, but we’ve been working hard in practice and in games,” O’Keefe said.

Unlike most, the Big Red have five games played already this season. However, that is important since they only worked out in house in 2020 because of the coronavirus.

O’Keefe began her education at L’ville last year, but this is the first time in nearly 21 months that she and her teammates have been able to play games against offcampus competition in the waked of the pandemic.

“This game shows us what we are capable of doing,” O’Keefe said. “We learned a lot from this.”

With 5-8 senior guard Taylor Simpson leading the way with 10 points, and two more guards, senior Maria Sanmartin and sophomore Hayla Dora, adding six apiece, there is no doubt what the Big Red are good at and what they need to do better.

“Definitely, we’re a big team of guards, so we’ve been working on handling the ball,” O’Keefe said. “We also need to get the ball in to the post more.”

With six-foot senior Campbell FitzHugh, 6-1 junior Dara Grinberg and 5-11 sophomore Avery Ottaway, Lawrenceville definitely has a presence inside. However, that trio only combined to score nine points Saturday against a team it was clearly taller than.

That work will come, as will the wins. For now, O’Keefe and the rest of the Big Red are happy to simply be back out on the court playing other teams.

A fifth-place trophy today would just be a little more incentive.

ST. JAMES (7)

Watkins 0-0-0, Sullivan 0-2-2, McMillan 0-0-0, Barnes 0-2-2, Mbanugo 1-0-2, Bamforth 0-1-1, Harman 0-0-0, Nguyen 0-0-0, Dotson 0-0-0.

Totals — 1-5-7. LAWRENCEVILLE (46)

Simpson 5-0-10, Sanmartin 2-2-6, FitzHugh 2-0-4, Beritela 0-0-0, Shah 1-0-2, Grinberg 2-1-5, O’Keefe 3-3-9, Kumar 0-0-0, Ottaway 0-0-0, Jerge 0-0-0, Dora 3-0-6, Hughes 1-0-2, Towers 1-0-2.

Totals — 20-6-46.

St. James (0-2) 0 4 2 1 — 7 Lawrenceville(2-3) 20 12 10 4 — 46