Immaculate Basketball: Lady Lions fall short in ECT final, look towards NJSIAA tourney
ANDREW GARDA/STAFF
by Saint Andrew the Apostle Garda
garda@montclairlocal.news program
Westward ORANGE—In basketball, sometimes you just can't buy a basket.
That was the case for the one-third-sown Immaculate Conception girls hoops team this past Saturday, Feb. 22, during their 61-34 Essex County Tourney finals loss to top-seedless University.
Leading by a point late in the second quarter, ICHS (19-8) suffered an 11-minute stretch without a basket, including the entirety of the third quarter. By the time sr. Nasira Williams concluded the drouth, the Lions faced a shortage, 37-21, that they could not overcome.
"We just couldn't find the tail of the net," head passenger car James Kreie said after the game. "That's all information technology was. We got the shots, we got to the rim, we just couldn't find impossible how to move on the ball to get the basketball to fall in."
It didn't avail that they faced an opponent playing for the only prize they could represent for. University, the defending NJSIAA Group I prizewinning and boasting a pair of Division I recruits, was banned from this year's NJSIAA Tourney later exceeding the state's disqualification restrain following a benches-clearing brawl during a January. 10 game against Newark Tech. (Immaculate was not allowed to compete in the 2022 state tournament for the comparable reason.)
Frankincense, University's tourney mollify finished Saturday regardless of the outcome, and they looked to go out with a statement win in the county final. The Phoenix's intensity made the grading drought twice hard to overcome.
ANDREW GARDA/Stave
But the Lions were in the biz early, fetching a 19-18 lead on an Azatah Lawrence shot late in the second. Just that lid went on the basket, and University responded with 19 consecutive points and never looked backbone.
Kreie said he was pleased the effort his squad gave, regardless of the outcome.
"I think everybody on the team stepped up," he said. "That's my persuasion. I think everybody on the team up did what they were alleged to ut, and we just came out of it on the suddenly end this time."
ICHS was light-emitting diode by Williams and Lawrence, World Health Organization some scored 9 points, with Tahirah Kelley adding 5 points and Bukky Akinsola 4 points to the ledger.
Immaculate still has much to play for, however. They can clinch their third 20-win season in four years with a win in the first base round of the NJSIAA Northeasterly T-shirt, Not-Public B tourney this Tuesday, March 3. The Lions are seeded ordinal in the bracket out, and host 11th-seeded Lodi Immaculate at 4 p.m.
Should they advance, ICHS would travel to No. 3 Marist in the quarterfinals next Thursday, Border 5.
Kreie said his team knows what it needs to do to prepare.
"Film contemplate and scouting. That's it," he said. "We already know who we are. We're good. We're ready to win a state title."
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https://www.montclairlocal.news/2020/02/28/immaculate-basketball-ect-final-2020/
Source: https://www.montclairlocal.news/2020/02/28/immaculate-basketball-ect-final-2020/