Unselfish Offense Keeps Colonials Advancing in NJSIAA Tournament
The FHS Varsity girls basketball team will play their third game in the
NJSIAA tournament against the Hopewell Valley Bulldogs on Saturday,
March 2.
The Colonials started off the tournament with a win over the Red Bank Regional Bucs 50 to 30 and continued their winning streak by defeating Somerville on Thursday, 58 to 34.
Head coach Jennifer Brzucki explained to Patch that the girl's unselfish offense is their strongest skill, but in order to keep advancing in the tournament the girls need to keep up their defensive skills, especially when it comes to boxing out, rebounding and securing the ball.
The girls will travel to Pennington on Saturday, March 2 to take on the number two seed, the Hopewell Valley Bulldogs.
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Hopewell Valley girls' basketball hopes to reverse NJSIAA trend
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on March 02, 2013 at 6:00 AM, updated March 02, 2013 at 6:10 AM
The Hopewell Valley girls’ basketball team has been here before and
today it will be trying to erase a two-year trend. The past two seasons
the Bulldogs have had excellent seasons, and at the end of each of those
seasons they won their first two games in the CJ III section, but
stumbled both times in the semifinals. Mind you, against very good
teams.on March 02, 2013 at 6:00 AM, updated March 02, 2013 at 6:10 AM
Today at 4 p.m., on the Bulldogs’ home court against No. 3 seed Freehold Borough, this year’s Bulldogs are looking to put that pattern behind them. With a win over Borough they’ll move on to Monday’s Central Jersey Group III title game against the winner of today’s Middletown South (No. 1)-Neptune (No. 4) game.
On Friday, Hopewell (23-3) earned a hard-fought 52-48 victory over a solid Middletown North squad, earning it a trip to today’s semifinal. The opponent, Freehold Borough, is an outstanding team that comes in with a 21-5 record having defeated Red Bank (No. 14), 50-30, and then upending Somerville, 58-34, to get itself into the semifinals.
Freehold Borough comes from the Shore Conference, the same conference that has been the source of Hopewell Valley’s curse the last two seasons.
According to HoVal coach, Jeff Losch, Freehold Borough’s a talented team that plays a great schedule and is a team that’s used to playing at this level. The Colonials have three seniors, Kim Dana, Sara Cobb and Camerin Spahn, who have started all four years, plus both Dana and Spahn have cracked the 1,000 point plateau in their careers. Cobb’s younger sister, sophomore Rebecca, is the team’s leading scorer, while Kim Dana is the team’s leading 3-point marksperson.
Down low, Borough looks to Rebecca Cobb and Spahn to provide the muscle underneath. The Colonials have beaten Shore Conference rivals Middletown South, 40-39, and Neptune (60-56) in mid-January. The Colonials, however, later lost to Middletown North (40-32) and to Middletown South (38-30) in the second round of the Shore Conference Tournament.
Hopewell, except for its misstep against Trenton Catholic Academy in the MCT semifinals, comes into today’s game having won 14 of its last 15 games and have played well in two tournament victories. The Bulldogs fully expect to see an outstanding Colonials team today and are ready for whatever they throw at them.
“We expect a tough game. But, our approach is going to be to try to take care of the ball on offense, and make them earn every basket on defense,” said Jeff Losch. “We will focus on their three top players, but cannot ignore the other girls because they are all very solid.
“I sure hope this is our year. We’ve made it this far three straight years, and I think all three teams remaining in the section with us are very good. Our girls have worked very hard to get back to this point. We are playing well and we don’t want the season to end.
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