Lady Highlanders Dominate, Topple JFK-Iselin, 63-41

The Lady Highlanders carried their tough defensive play over from their opening-round, 39-point victory against Barringer last week when they hosted the Lady Mustangs of JFK Memorial High School on Thursday, March 2.

The result was similar; West Morris out-hustled, out-rebounded, and out-stole the Lady Mustangs and got point contributions from nine different players on its way to a 63-41 win.

“Our goal was to pressure their ball handlers and to cause turnovers or get the rebounds and run a fast break,” said Lady Highlanders’ head coach Fran Gavin. “We were successful and were able to run. In fact, I think we ran it once or twice off of a made basket. When that happens, everybody gets to share, and everybody gets to shoot.”

West Morris was able to create so many scoring opportunities to itself not only because of its distinct size advantage over JFK, but because of its smart play and sound fundamentals.

“I don’t look at basketball as size against non-size; I look at basketball as a function of basketball skills and aggressiveness,” said Gavin. “While it’s true that we had the better size, I think what made the difference was how hard we played and how smart we played. Smart basketball beats size basketball any day.”

Junior center Shayna Ericksen, who had a double-double with a team-high 26 points and 10 rebounds, agreed with Gavin’s notion.

“I think all of us have good basketball minds. We try to read people’s eyes and see where they’re passing the ball,” said Ericksen. “It helps for us to get steals and fast breaks. Other teams can do it to us, at times, but I think we played really smart today.”

Ericksen was mainly aided by teammates Amy McQuade, who finished with 10 points, and Carly Shello, who finished with eight points and six key steals for the Lady Highlanders.

After two strong playoff victories by a combined 61 points, the Lady Highlanders are playing loose and having fun. However, they’ll also have to find a way to stay hungry; the Highlanders face a tough task when they travel to second-seeded Somerville on Saturday for the sectional semi-final game.

“That’s always the difficult task of a coach, to find out ways to motivate and focus,” said Gavin. “We’ll figure something out between now and Saturday.”

Ericksen didn’t seem to think she and her teammates would have any trouble being motivated for Saturday’s game.

“I think we definitely remind ourselves that if we lose, we’re done,” said Ericksen. “I know that everybody on our team does not want our season to be over. Every game, I think we come out with the same focus, as if this was our last game. We’d want to leave everything out on the court if it was our last game.”