Girls basketball: Scotch Plains-Fanwood holds off Watchung Hills to reach sectional final

WARREN – The last time the Scotch Plains-Fanwood girls basketball team rolled into Watchung Hills High School, it scored, arguably, its biggest win of the year, shaking off a bad first half to ride a big third-quarter rally and secure the late victory over the Skyland Conference power on Jan. 14.

Saturday, the Raiders were back in Warren, this time for the NJSIAA North 2 Group 4 semifinals, and it was SPF that got out to the big first-half advantage, only to see the Warriors rally in the third. And while one of the signs of a good team is it learning from its failures, Scotch Plains-Fanwood showed it can also learn from its successes.

The seventh-seeded Raiders built a quick 13-point first-quarter lead, and was up by as many as 16 in the quarter, before carrying a 14-point advantage into halftime. But after sixth-seeded Watchung Hills came storming back to close the deficit to just three points headed into the final period, the Raiders were able to ride a confidence built with last month’s win to surge in the fourth period, finishing with a 54-36 win and a trip to Monday’s sectional final.

“Last time we played them, we did not play our best at all,” said junior guard Amanda Baylock, who finished with 28 points, five rebounds and seven steals in the win. “We didn’t shoot well and the first half was a big struggle. So, we knew our weakness and what we had to do. And I think we came in confident that we weren’t going to play as bad and our shots were going to fall.”

“When we came in against Watchung Hills a second time, we didn’t even think we played that well the first time, and we won,” Raiders coach Ryan McKenna said. “So, we said, let’s go out and do what we do, and we competed at a high level.”

After Scotch Plains-Fanwood’s Ali Murphy and Watchung Hills’ Liv Holliday exchanged buckets to start the game, Scotch Plains-Fanwood embarked on a 12-0 run, powered by six points from Maggie McNulty on three baskets, and a pair of 3s from Baylock. The Raiders finished the first quarter up 17-5.

SPF, which will visit top-seeded Bayonne in Monday’s final, increased the lead to 24-8 after another Baylock 3 with just under 4:00 left in the second, going into the locker room up 28-14.

But Watchung Hills was anything but done, as Morgan Groff’s four-point play got things going to start the third quarter, and the veteran team looked reinvigorated. The Warriors finished the stanza with a 17-6 advantage, fueled by seven points from Ava Lobozzo and six points from Holliday, and trailed just 34-31 headed to the final period.

But Scotch Plains-Fanwood was equal to the task, slowing things down and being more patient with its shot, while Watchung Hills lost its shooting touch. Baylock netted 15 points in the final quarter, including going 7-for-7 from the free-throw line, to close out the program’s biggest win in nearly two decades.

“We’re a confident group and we stick together, and I think the sticking together is the big thing,” Baylock said. “We’re very close, so we just came together at the end of that third quarter, talked it out, and figured it out. We slowed the ball down and ran through our sets. In the second and third quarter, we were rushing, and I think slowing the game down was huge.”

“At halftime, we said ‘They’re going to make a run,’” said McKenna, who believes 2004 was SPF’s last trip to a sectional final. “We’re not going to be up 14 entering the fourth, and can we withstand that? We just needed to refocus and do what we did well in the first half. And going into that fourth quarter, we said if we got stops and we got rebounds, we’d win the game, and that’s what we did.”

For Watchung Hills, which has battled back from several deficits to win big games this year, it looked like it was in for another big rally in front of a near-capacity home crowd. And while the Warriors came up short, their effort was certainly not lost on the crowd or their coach.

“There’s been lots of games where we’ve been in a tough situation and they never quit,” Watchung hills coach Reese Kirchofer said. “And they reminded me of that today. We made a nice run back, made a few adjustments, but it’s hard to get over that hump. Their heart is unquestionable.”

WHAT IT MEANS

Scotch Plains-Fanwood improves to 19-9 and advances to the sectional final and will visit top-seeded Bayonne at 5 p.m. Monday for the North 2 Group 4 crown. Watchung Hills’ bounce-back season ends at 20-7.

THEY SAID IT

“I’ve never actually felt emotional after a game, but I did today,” said SPF coach Ryan McKenna, in his sixth year at the SPF helm, a program that had endured eight losing seasons in nine years before going 12-3 in the pandemic-shortened campaign two years ago and haven’t sniffed a sectional final in over a decade. “I’ve known some of these girls since they were in the fourth grade. I was told when I took over the program, you’ve got to get your hands in the youth program and you’ve got to be patient and see it through. And they have the desire to win, they have the talent to win, so it’s nice to see it pay off. We were in the quarterfinals last year, and losing stunk. We didn’t feel a sense of accomplishment last year with that, we wanted to go further, and now we’re glad we are.”

“I’m more than proud,” Watchung Hills coach Reese Kirchofer said, returning to the helm after a two-year absence and resuming the helm after the team started last year 9-3, only to lose 10-of-12 the rest of the way. “We spoke midway through the season and you reminded me last year they started hot and then took a nosedive at the end, and I promised you it wouldn’t happen again, and it didn’t, because these kids learned to play as a team. We lost a top player (Julia Puglisi to injury) midway through the season, and yet we made a tremendous run to where we are today. Sometimes you just don’t have a good game, and it’s a bad day for that, but this team is fantastic and they’re fantastic kids. So, I’m very proud of where we are as a program and I’m glad to be back as a part of it. It feels good.”

BOX SCORE

SCOTCH PLAINS-FANWOOD (19-9) 17-11-6-20 -- 54

WATCHUNG HILLS (20-7) 5-9-17-5 -- 36

SCORING: SPF--Baylock 28, Pecarsky 7, Cawley 6, Murphy 6, McNulty 6, Lehman 12; WH—Holliday 9, A. Lobozzo 7, Groff 7, Squizziato 6, Gillenwater 5, G. Lobozzo 2.

REBOUNDS: SPF—Murphy 10, Lehman 6, Baylock 5, Pecarsky 3, Catalano 2, McNulty 2, Beauregard 1, Cawley 1; WH—Squizziato 8, A. Lobozzo 6, G. Lobozzo 4, Holliday 4, Groff 3, Gillenwater 1, Lee 1, Gaydos 1.

Simeon Pincus has been covering NJ sports since 1997. He can be reached at CNGirlsHoops@aol.com. Follow him on Twitter @SimeonPincus

This article originally appeared on MyCentralJersey.com: NJ Girls basketball: Scotch Plains-Fan. holds off Watchung Hills