LINWOOD - Cedar Creek High School's Maddy Tomasello scored her team's final seven points Saturday against Southern Regional.
Tomasello's final basket with 2.3
seconds left was a put-back of her own shot from the right side that
gave the Cedar Creek girls basketball team a thrilling 60-58 win at the
War vs. the Shore tournament at Mainland Regional High School.
Tomasello, a 5-foot-6 senior
guard, hit a 3-pointer that tied the game at 56-56 with 2 minutes, 8
seconds left and felt like she should keep shooting.
"When I hit a 3-pointer, I could
feel my shot was on," said Tomasello, 17, of Mullica Township. "I
followed the shot after the miss and got the next shot.
"The team has been little on a roller coaster (this season), but I think this win will start a new streak for us."
Cedar Creek improved to 13-6, and
the win was the 99th for fifth-year coach Francine Raph. Southern is
14-3 and saw their 11-game winning streak come to an end.
The Pirates were 28-for-37 from the foul line, including 7-for-8 in the fourth quarter. Southern sank 13-of-15 from the line.
"Maddy is good around the basket, and at clutch time she came through," Raph said.
"Our kids played hard, and we
knew it would be a battle. We won the game on the free-throw line. That
has hurt us in some of our games. Southern was a disciplined team and
played well. It was a close game and could have gone either way."
Alissa Reeves, who led Cedar
Creek with 17 points, went 5-for-6 from the line in the final eight
minutes. Reeves scored 10 points in the first quarter. Casey Thomas
added 12 points for the Pirates, and Tomasello finished with 11 points,
all in the second half. Teammates Shannon Fletcher scored all 10 of her
points in the first half.
Cedar Creek led 21-11 after the
first quarter, but the Rams took a 35-34 halftime lead with 24
second-quarter points. Southern went on an 11-0 run midway though the
third quarter and built a 48-38 lead. But the Pirates closed it to
trailed 50-46 by the end of the quarter.
"We knew Southern was one of the
top teams and we didn't take them lightly," said Thomas, a 17-year-old
senior from Sweetwater. "In the beginning, we got up on them, but lost
the lead. We fought our way back. People definitely thought we wouldn't
win, but we wanted to prove we could win it. We've had a few bad games,
but we proved we have it in us."
Gabby Davis, a 6-foot-1 sophomore
forward, led Southern with 16 points, while Bianca Nicolini and Morgan
Henderson scored 12 points apiece, and Tierney Goetz had nine.
"We missed a lot of close-range
shots, but in the second quarter we settled down and made them,"
Southern's first-year coach Tom Bucci said. "The free-throw line hurt us
in the game. Twenty-nine fouls were called in the first half, and
that's really a lot. Both teams battled the whole way, but they came
back, and my hat's off to them."
Contact Guy Gargan:
609-272-7210
Southern Regional 11 24 15 8-58
Cedar Creek 21 13 12 14-60
SR-Davis 16, Goetz 9, B. Nicolini 12, Henderson 12, Caiazzo 7, McHale 2.
CC-Thomas 12, Reeves 17, A. Tanko 4, Fletcher 10, M. Tomasello 11, Kruger 6.
3-pointers-Henderson (2), Goetz S. Reeves, M. Tomasello CC.
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