Pennington wins prestigious Peddie Tip-Off Tournament
HIGHTSTOWN >> An annual goal for the Pennington School varsity girls’ basketball team is to win the Peddie Tip-Off Tournament to start the season.
Usually, that is easier said than done.
However, when you have a player as talented as sixfoot junior guard Morgan Matthews, it makes things a little more attainable.
A year ago, the Red Hawks came up short in that quest, but Sunday in the championship game of the seventh annual Peddie School Tip-Off at the Erik B. Hanson Field House within the Ian H. Graham Athletic Center, Matthews and Co. held off a tough St. Benedict’s squad, 58-49, to grab their third crown after also opening the season with back-to-back trophy wins in 2017 and 2018.
Playing in just her second Peddie Tournament because it was not played her freshman year because of the coronavirus pandemic, Matthews continued to put her mark on the three-day affair.
In 2021, she set a singlegame scoring mark with 29 points and a tournament scoring record with 73 points, while earning AllTournament honors. Matthews returned this year to narrowly miss matching or breaking her singlegame record with 28 points versus Wilbraham & Monson in the semifinals before coming up a point short of her tournament total with 72 points in 2022.
While few knew that she was so close as she dribbled off the game’s final 10 seconds, Matthews still proved to be the dominant player of the event and, this time, was rewarded with the tournament’s Most Valuable Player trophy.
“As a team, we play really well together,” Matthews said. “All of this goes to my teammates. They set me up. I just play.”
First-time Red Hawks head coach Carmen Cook knows what kind of a talent Matthews is, yet the former 18-year head coach at Voorhees High also delights in what he sees from all of his new players.
“I’m proudest that our assists were greater than our turnovers for this whole tournament,” Cook said. “That means the girls are looking for each other.”
And finding each other as they did from the time Matthews connected on a three-point play with 5:47 left in the first quarter to put Pennington in the lead to stay.
Yet, while Matthews was dominant in scoring 22 points, grabbing 12 rebounds, plus coming up with five steals and four blocked shots, she was just as proud of 5-4 senior point guard Macayla Rodriguez, who matched the gamehigh with 22 points, while also coming up with six steals.
Rodriguez scored nine of her points in the first quarter to help her team get out to an 18-10 lead. Then she provided six more points in the final six minutes to help the Red Hawks hold off the stubborn Gray Bees.
“I didn’t do my best the
last game, so I tried to work with my teammates more in this one,” Rodriguez said. “Me and the team work well together. We came to win this tournament. We came to play every day. No matter what happened, we kept fighting.”
Rodriguez was equally appreciative of 5-7 sophomore guard Izzy Augustine, who added 10 points and earned All-Tournament honors, along with St. Benedict’s senior guard Shauntia Alexander, who paced the Gray Bees with 19 points.
ST. BENEDICT’S (49)
Alexander 7-5-19, Forbes-Morgan 1-0-2, Caldwell 3-0-6, Seymour 4-0-8, Richardson 3-2-8, Patterson 0-0-0, Lubega 1-2-4, Alston 1-0-2.
Totals — 20-9-49.
PENNINGTON (58)
MRodriguez 8-4-22, Augustine 5-0-10, Matthews 9-4-22, Hokkanen 1-0-2, GHall 0-2-2, BMiller 0-0-0, Nwoye 0-0-0. Totals — 23-10-58.
St. Benedict’s (2-0) 10 13 13 13 — 49 Pennington (2-0) 18 22 10 8 — 58 3-point goals — MRodriguez 2 (P). ALL-TOURNAMENT TEAM — Ciara O’Hara (Kimberton Waldorf), Stella Kozak (Kimball Union), Amira Pinkett (Hun), Tatum Young (Lake Forest), Sydnee Eggleton (Peddie), Caterina Ravosa (Wilbraham & Monson), Shauntia Alexander (St. Benedict’s), Izzy Augustine (Pennington). MOST VALUABLE PLAYER — Morgan Matthews (Pennington).
WILBRAHAM & MONSON 61,
PEDDIE 45 HIGHTSTOWN >> The host team stayed as close as 10 points with their Massachusetts opponent through three quarters in the thirdplace game.
But the Titans’ 6-foot-2 freshman forward Caterina Ravosa led four of her teammates in double figures with 20 points, plus 10 rebounds. The Falcons’ sixfoot senior guard/forward Sydnee Eggleton matched Ravosa’s numbers, but was the only Peddie player to reach double digits. Junior guard Marcela Nearing was next high with eight points and eight rebounds.
Senior forward Meagan Schuermann followed Ravosa with 15 points, plus a game-high 12 rebounds. Senior guard Adrianna McCoy scored all 13 of her points in the third quarter, and 5-11 junior forward Hannah Grudzien added 10 points, including a pair of 3-pointers to start the game as Wilbraham & Monson opened leads of 8-0 and 15-5.
PEDDIE (45)
Browne 0-7-7, Nearing 2-3-8, Caban 2-0-6, Ahmed 0-0-0, Jefferson 2-0-4, Salapatas 0-0-0, Eggleton 7-5-20, Jordan 0-0-0.
Totals — 13-15-45.
WILBRAHAM & MONSON (61)
Grudzien 3-2-10, Ravosa 6-4-20, TBell 0-0-0, Chandler 0-0-0, Schuermann 5-5-15, McCoy 5-0-13, Porter 0-3-3, Ethier 0-0-0.
Totals — 19-14-61.
Peddie (1-2) 5 12 13 15 — 45 Wlbrhm&Mnsn(2-1) 15 11 14 21 — 61 3-point goals — Nearing, Caban 2, Eggleton (P), Grudzien 2, Ravosa 4, McCoy 3 (WM).
LAKE FOREST 82, HUN 66 HIGHTSTOWN >> The final day in the Peddie Tip-Off began with a record-setting, high-scoring fifthplace game in which the Raiders and Caxy combined to score 148 points.
Hun kept the game interesting, but could not keep up with their Illinois opponent’s unconscious shooting.
Three Lake Forest players scored over 20 points with junior guard Selin Goekce leading the way with 26 points, while senior guard Tatum Young scored 23 and junior swing Emilia Sierra had 20 to help their team set the tournament’s team single-game scoring record.
Senior forward Sasha Moise joined the 20-plus scorers with 23 points to lead Hun, while sophomore guard/forward Amira Pinkett turned in 18. Moise and Pinkett also had 10 rebounds apiece.
HUN (66)
Moise 7-9-23, Lubaczewski 4-0-10, McNally 2-0-5, Schweer 0-2-2, Pinkett 8-1-18, Larkin 1-1-3, O’Dwyer 2-0-5, Neely 0-0-0.
Totals — 24-13-66.
LAKE FOREST (82)
Young 6-8-23, Sierra 8-2-20, Scales 0-0-0, Ye 0-0-0, Goekce 10-1-26, Farbman 5-0-13, Zhang 0-0-0, Wu 0-0-0, Ju 0-0-0, Dao 0-0-0.
Totals — 29-11-82.
Hun (1-3) 12 17 15 22 — 66 LakeForest(4-4) 25 20 19 18 — 82 3-point goals — Lubaczewski 2, McNally, Pinkett, O’Dwyer (P), Young 3, Sierra 2, Goekce 5, Farbman 3 (LF).