Bridgewater-Raritan Bounces Watchung Hills

A cold offense kept the Watchung Hills Regional High School girls basketball team from avenging last year's loss to Bridgewater-Raritan in a 52-42 defeat Saturday in the Somerset County Tournament quarterfinals.

“It was just one of those games,” Watchung Hills coach Sandy Whelan said. “I’ve been coaching long enough. Every loose ball ended up in their hands, every opportunity we had we couldn’t make.  I’ve been on the winning side of those. I’ve been on the losing side of those.  That...more than anything is really what it was.  They were just a little sharper than us.”

In the first half, the Warriors (13-7) had trouble handling Bridgewater’s full-court pressure and struggled to contain the perimeter shooting of the 13-8 Panthers.

“They threw it [the full court press] on in the last game. They did a nice job reading what we were trying to do,” Whelan said.

“The press they put up did real well,” junior Amy Park said.  “We already played them once.  They put a lot of effort out there.  They’re tough.”

With just two minutes to go in the third, the Warriors had cut the deficit to nine. But a Bridgewater 3-pointer with 40 seconds left in the period was really the dagger Watchung couldn’t recover from, trailing 37-25 with just one quarter to go.

Bridgewater continued its surge in the fourth quarter, connecting on a 3-pointer and yielding Watchung Hills to just two field goals over the first five minutes.

The Warriors mounted a late rally, fueled by an 8-2 run that cut the deficit to 46-37 with just 53 seconds remaining. But the Panthers  converted several free throws to seal the win.

Park and Breanua Williams each netted 12 points to lead the Warriors. Brielle Macellara added nine points, while Breanne Mackie had three. Monique Goncalves, Hannah Yuhl, and Alana Tielmann each had two points.

“Every team has weaknesses, and this is one of those games where we let our weaknesses take over,” Whelan said. “Offensive rebounding is not our strong point.  We’ve been working on it, talking about it all practice to crash the boards.”

Watchung Hills now turns its attention to the state tournament, which begins in a few weeks, and the remainder of its regular-season games.

“That’s my mindset [that it’s just one bad game].  Hopefully we can encourage the players to go along with that,” Whelan said.

“Coach told us in the locker room that we need to pick it up…we need to bounce back,” Park said. “Monday we have Hillsborough, Tuesday we have a game, Thursday.  We need to let it go and get ready for states.  We just have to step it up now and get a rhythm going again.”

The challenge for Whelan is to get her players over this loss as quickly as possible in order to mentally and physically prepare for the upcoming stretch. 

“We’ve done it [bouncing back] before,” she said. “It’ll take a little bit.  We’ll give them 24 hours and by Monday we’ll be ready to play Hillsborough and start to gain momentum to make a run in the state tournament.  We’re a good basketball team that didn’t play well today.”

Watchung’s next game is 7 p.m. Monday at Hillsborough.