Hightstown earns first MCT Final berth in 35 years
TRENTON >> Penelope Swarn is not one of the names most know that much about on the Hightstown High varsity girls’ basketball team.
This 6-foot-5 sophomore forward has moved in alongside 6-foot-4 junior center Abby Misier and given head coach Jenna Marcus’ team a formidable front line, which gives opposing teams more headaches than they may be expecting.
Swarn scored 10 points, grabbed 15 rebounds and blocked five shots to help the second-seeded Rams defeat the third-seeded Pennington School, 68-57, Tuesday in the semifinals of the Mercer County Tournament’s Championship Bracket at the CURE Insurance Arena.
“I feel like I’m beginning to get better. I wasn’t as good in the beginning of the season,” Swarn said.
Actually, this is only really the third year Swarn, who has grown another inch since the season began, has been playing organized basketball in Hightstown. After playing in seventh grade, she was unable to play in eighth because of the coronavirus pandemic.
Swarn played junior varsity as a freshman, then joined the varsity this year. But a concussion kept her out of some the Rams’ games, so she is still a rather new commodity in
the lineup with which many teams have to learn to deal.
“They got a lot of rebounds,” said Red Hawks 5-6 senior guard Macayla Rodriguez, whose 18 points led head coach Carmen Cook’s club. “We watched film on them and knew they had tall girls who had putbacks. We put a defense in to try to stop them.”
With Susquehanna University-bound Rodriguez hitting three 3-point field goals in the first quarter, Pennington was able to open a 17-14 lead after the first eight minutes.
But with 5-11 junior guard/forward Morgan Matthews (10 points) getting into foul trouble,
Hightstown was able to rally to send the game to halftime tied at 29.
“This year, I really wanted to step up,” Swarn said. “Over the summer and fall, I really trained more. Abby being there really helps me out. We’re the Towers of Hightstown.”
Those Towers began to wear on the Red Hawks as the game went on.
Misier had 19 points, 11 rebounds and three blocks of her own, and 5-7 senior guard Kyla Glasser-Hyman, who had seen her squad narrowly miss out on a trip to the MCT Final a year ago, took over in the second half.
The West Chester University-bound
guard scored 19 of her game-high 30 points in the second half to give the Rams a 46-41 edge at the end of three quarters.
With Pennington drawing as close as a point (4948 and 51-50) midway through the fourth quarter with sophomore guard Izzy Augustine and senior guard Claire King adding 12 and 11 points, respectively, Hightstown began to pull away from the time 5-10 sophomore forward Caitlyn Nagle scored with 3:27 to go. Swarn put on a show of her own in the closing quarter, grabbing seven of her rebounds and scoring four points, including
two free throws with 24.1 seconds remaining to stretch the lead to 65-55.
“I can definitely tell I’ve improved,” Swarn said. “I used to never be able to make foul shots. Now I’ve started to lock into the skill set that I need.”
That skill set has helped put the Rams in the county final for the first time since 1988. They will meet the winner of Wednesday’s second semifinal between fifth-seeded Notre Dame and top-seeded Ewing at 5 p.m. Thursday in the CURE Insurance Arena.