Girls Basketball: New Providence repeats as UCT champions with a big second half
UNION - It wasn’t an earth-shattering run New Providence High School’s girls’ basketball team used Sunday to break free of Westfield in the second half of the Union County Tournament final. Just some determined, smart defense and clutch offense.
The top-seeded Pioneers silenced No. 2 Westfield in the second half to claim a 46-34 victory at Kean University’s Harwood Arena. New Providence beat Westfield 56-46 for the county title last year.
The Pioneers (22-3) scored a 48-44 December 17th win at Westfield this season. But the Blue Devils (18-6) won a 61-48 game on Jan. 12 at New Providence. Annie Ryan, Sutton Factor and Paige Gorczyca combined for 55 points in the game.
That loss has really been a motivator for the Pioneers. They have won 14 straight since and Sunday the Westfield “Big 3’ were held to 21 points.
"We just wanted to focus on defense and keep their 'Big 3' from going off against us," said New Providence coach Cap Pazdera. "We talked about the defense doing a great job, and we had a goal to keep them under 50 and not get into a shootout with them. We focused on defense and got stop after stop (in the second half)."
Junior guard Grace Kinum finished with 11 points, six rebounds and five assists and she also played very well on the defensive side.
"We just had to keep up the defensive intensity," Kinum said. "They took advantage of some defensive lapses the last time we played them. We had to give a strong defensive effort. We were pressing just man-to-man to try to tire them out. We talked at halftime about it. They were getting into the paint against us in the first half, and we stopped them from doing that."
BIG MOMENTS
Westfield never trailed in the first half and had a 21-19 lead at the break. But New Providence got out quickly in the third quarter and really never relented. They ran off 14 straight points stretching from the third and fourth quarters.
New Providence held Westfield to one basket in a span of about 10 minutes in the second half.
Senior forward Grace Kelly pulled down six rebounds and had just three points. But it was a very important three. She took a pass from freshman Annie Conover and hit a trey to give the Pioneers a late-third quarter 24-23 lead.
"Grace's '3' just changed the momentum for us," said Kinum. "We knew that was our chance to go up by a lot."
They never trailed again.
Miller followed with another three and Kinum capped the third quarter with a basket off a tricky drive in traffic to give New Providence a 29-23 lead with three seconds left in the period.
The momentum continued into the fourth with a 6-0 run as Miller, Meghan Lamanna and Miller again gave New Providence a 35-23 lead. Lamanna finished with 10 points.
Ryan led Westfield with 11.
KEY EFFORTS
Junior forward Jasmine Miller was the Pioneers’ leading scorer for the second straight game. She had 10 of her 14 points in the second half against Westfield. She had 20 in a 48-44 semifinal win over Roselle Catholic.
THEY SAID IT
Pazdera on the strong second half, "In the first half, we missed some layups and free throws. We watched a lot of film to see what they did when they lit us up in the second half (in January). They had too many open shots. We needed better communication. The girls were trying to do too much (by themselves) in that game."
WHAT'S NEXT
Top-seed New Providence will open Central Group 2 play Tuesday at home at 5 p.m. against No. 16 Delaware Valley. The Pioneers were beaten by Manasquan in the sectional final last year.
The No. 13 seed Phillipsburg Stateliners visit defending state Group 4 champ and No. 4 seed Westfield Tuesday at 5 p.m. The Blue Devils beat the Liners 68-38 in last year’s North 2, Group 4 sectional quarterfinal.
This article originally appeared on MyCentralJersey.com: Girls Basketball: New Providence repeats as UCT champions
