McCrea leads Allentown past Northern Burlington
ALLENTOWN >> Maddie McCrea and the Allentown High girls basketball players prefer a good challenge.
The Redbirds’ Colonial Valley Conference season has not been going quite as well as they would thus far this season, but first-year head coach Dana Wells’ young charges have shown a willingness to learn.
And while McCrea is only a sophomore, the 6-foot-1 forward, who saw a good bit of varsity action as a freshman, is one of the players her teammates look to in helping get the game going in A’town’s direction.
So when McCrea rose to the challenge of playing against the Northern Burlington front court of 6-1 juniors Haylei Archer and Alexa Blue Monday, her energy carried over to her teammates and helped the Redbirds climb closer to .500 with a 53-42 win over the 7-7 Greyhounds.
“Yes, I like going up against girls my size. I like the competition,” McCrea said after leading Allentown with 17 points, including a pair of 3-point field goals. “Our energy is different from the beginning of the season. We jumped out to a 9-0 lead today, but we didn’t sit back and chill. We kept going at them.”
McCrea had a lot to do with that start, scoring nine of her team’s 11 firstquarter points to take a five-point lead.
“In the beginning of the game, we weren’t hitting our shots, and they got a lot of transition baskets,” said Greyhounds 5-6 senior guard Brianna Sorrento, who is headed to Rowan University next season. “We knew about Lauren (Coiante, 15 points), but Maddie really stepped up for them.”
Third-year head coach Colin Hewko’s Northern squad continued to get decent looks, but could not get many shots to fall in the first half. But the visitors, who were badly hoping for a win between their Burlington County Scholastic League Liberty Division games with Trenton Catholic Academy, still only trailed 24-17 at the break.
“We still have to work on our defense and talking more, but we’re getting there,” McCrea said.
Sorrento, who led the Greyhounds with 18 points, hit a trey midway through the third quarter to close the gap to 26-24, but the home team stretched its lead back to 36-30 when McCrea hit a 3-pointer from the top of the key with 14 seconds left in the quarter.
Archer and Blue backed Sorrento with 11 and 10 points, respectively, but Northern Burlington, which hosts TCA at 3:45 p.m. Tuesday, could not get closer than eight points twice in the fourth quarter.
McCrea and the Redbirds will look to stay up to the challenge at 5:15 p.m. Tuesday when they visit Robbinsville in CVC play. NO. BURLINGTON (42)
Sorrento 6-2-18, THall 0-0-0, Beachum 0-0-0, Archer 4-3-11, Blue 3-2-10, Quigley 1-1-3, Mayernik 0-0-0, Hart 0-0-0, Montague 0-0-0, Krusen 0-0-0, HRussell 0-0-0. Totals — 14-8-42. ALLENTOWN (53)
Coiante 5-5-15, Carotenuto 3-0-7, Forman 1-0-2, VRodriguez 0-0-0, Conti 3-1-7, Leach 0-0-0, Borgese 0-0-0, McCrea 7-1-17, Dona 0-0-0, O’Keefe 0-0-0, Layman 0-0-0, Schweitzer 2-0-5. Totals — 21-7-53.
No.Burl. (7-7) 6 11 13 12 — 42 Allentown(4-5) 11 13 12 17 — 53 3-point goals: Sorrento 4, Blue 2 (NB), Carotenuto, McCrea 2, Schweitzer (A).