Edison stuns top-seeded East Brunswick in GMCT girls basketball semifinals

The Edison High School girls basketball team used a morning shootaround hours before its Greater Middlesex Conference Tournament semifinal against East Brunswick to prove the old adage practice makes perfect.

“We walked through our offensive and defensive sets,” Edison head coach Frank Eckert explained of the workout that preceded his team’s stunning 64-50 upset of the top-seeded Bears.

“We knew how to exploit them, and we knew what we needed to do defensively. We ran through it with live sets, and it was fresh in their minds, and they executed flawlessly today.”

Edison (13-11) avenged a pair of regular-season losses by a total of 28 points to the Bears (19-3) and snapped East Brunswick's league winning streak, which dated back to last season, at 19 games.

In doing so, the Eagles advanced to the league tournament final for the first time since 2004, when Keri Shutz, who went on to star at Seton Hall University, led Edison to the second of two championship games during her career.

Edison (13-11) will meet Piscataway on Thursday at the Rutgers Athletics Center for the conference tournament crown. The Chiefs advanced with a 65-54 win over Bishop Ahr in Monday's other semifinal.

Piscataway defeated the Eagles twice during the regular season, winning 57-56 on a free throw with no time on the clock in the initial confrontation and rolling to a 49-39 win in the next meeting.

Edison’s backcourt of Samira Sargent and Lourdes Marasigan combined for 35 points in the semifinal win over East Brunswick, but more importantly the guards clamped down on counterparts Nicole Johnson and Alyssa Bondi.

Johnson, a Lafayette College signee, and Bondi, a catch-and-shoot 3-point specialist, combined for 75 points in East Brunswick ‘s regular-season sweep of Edison, but were limited to a total of 23 points on 8 of 34 shooting (24 percent) in Monday’s semifinal.

“We had to do our job and stay on task,” Marasigan said. “I think our team really completed that. That’s why we got up to a big lead (double-digits early in the third quarter).”

After East Brunswick (19-3) took a 24-23 advantage on Brianna Sliwinski’s 3-pointer with four minutes left in a nip-and-tuck opening half that featured nine lead changes and four ties, the Eagles responded with a 23-8 run that bridged the second and third quarters to build what proved to be an insurmountable 46-32 cushion with just under 11 minutes remaining in the game.

During that pivotal seven-minute stretch, Johnson and Bondi were limited to just two points as the Eagles defended with a variation of a triangle-and-two defense in which Sargent was isolated on Bondi and Marasigan blanketed Johnson. Edison’s guards benefited from sound help defense.

“We decided to make Nicole Johnson a shooter – protect on the drive – and we tried to take away Alyssa Bondi from her 3-point shots,” said Eckert, who watched Bondi drain a total of 10 buckets from beyond the arc in the regular-season sweep. “We made sure that she wasn’t going to beat us. Everyone else, they would have to take their shots to beat us today.”

The Bears netted the last six points of the third quarter, closing the gap to 46-38, but were held scoreless over the next four minutes as Edison rebuilt its lead to 54-38 midway through the final quarter.

Sliwinski, who posted a game-high 19 points and 12 rebounds, had four of her buckets in the third quarter to help keep the Bears in striking distance. Johnson, however, picked up her fourth foul just two minutes and 27 seconds into the fourth quarter, and had to play somewhat cautiously the rest of the way.

Edison, which extended its winning streak to five games, was playing at full strength for only the third time all season.

Center Daniella Marmol, playing with a heavily taped left (non-shooting) hand, which she injured earlier this season, missed three weeks of action, while Kenisha Chester, the younger sister of former Rutgers University football star Leonte Carroo, who now plays wide receiver for the Miami Dolphins, returned to the lineup just 18 days ago.

With Carroo, wearing a Miami Dolphins pullover, cheering his sister from the stands behind the Edison bench at the Spotswood High School gymnasium, Chester grabbed a team-high 10 rebounds, mostly long-range caroms off perimeter misses, and made her presence felt with her athleticism on defense. She scored the final points of the opening half on a layup after beating a defender with a nifty crossover dribble, proving East Brunswick needed to respect her offensive skills.

Marmol, who picked up her third foul with just over five minutes left in the second quarter, was relegated to the bench, where she was visibly impacted, for the remainder of the half.

She netted 25 of Edison’s points in a 76-55 season-opening loss to East Brunswick, but was held without a field goal in the first half of Monday’s semifinal. Eckert stuck with his big girl in the third quarter, calling her number on three consecutive trips down the floor, to which Marmol responded with a layup, a bucket on a follow of her own miss and another layup to help Edison build the aforementioned 46-32 lead.

“She plays so hard, I don’t like to go away from her,” Eckert said of not worrying about Marmol picking up her fourth foul in crunch time. “Even in foul trouble, she’s a smart player. She plays all year round. She’s the heart and soul of our team. She’s going to bang no matter what. The love for her team, the passion that she has, she doesn’t quit. She’s always going to be relentless down there (on the low block).”

The Eagles were able to build their 31-24 halftime lead largely because they limited East Brunswick to 10 of 34 shooting, converted 10 of 19 from the floor themselves, owned a 20-13 edge on the boards and were able to overcome 11 turnovers, an Achilles heel in Edison’s first two losses to East Brunswick.

“They just had to settle down from some jitters,” Eckert said of Edison’s guards, who committed two early first-quarter turnovers simply by dribbling the ball out of bounds off their own legs. “We took care of the ball offensively. When we lost to them before, we had too many turnovers. The focus today was to take care of the all, run the clock and select shots.”

Sargent, who posted a game-high 19 points, and Marasigan, who scored 16 points, made some circus shots in the first half. Sargent was effective off dribble penetration, even when East Brunswick’s post players forced her wide, and Marasigan drained three clutch 3-pointers, matching Bondi, who connected on her first three attempts from downtown, but was limited to just one basket the rest of the way.

Angella Consolazio, a role player who epitomizes the blue-collar grit of the Eagles, had to briefly leave the contest to have her right arm wrapped in bandages when it started bleeding after she got caught in a scrum for a rebound that was eventually called a jump ball. She finished with just three points, but provided valuable minutes.

After Virginia Lagdameo, who netted five of her 10 points from the foul line in the final 73 seconds, sank Edison’s final free throw to ice the win, Eckert pulled his starters, who received a standing ovation as they returned to the bench from their fans, including Edison High School principal Charlie Ross, who was among their biggest supporters.

“We just had to give it our all,” Marasigan said. “We just went all out today. We knew this was our last chance. We knew we were ready, and we proved it. Some people didn’t believe in us, and we didn’t care.”

Unlike East Brunswick, whose only losses were to Ridge and Bridgewater-Raritan, the enigmatic Eagles, who feature just one senior, were saddled with some strange losses, including a 24-point setback to a team they defeated by 35 points the first time the schools met.

“Today they just had a purpose to play,” Eckert said. “We knew all season that we needed to play our best basketball at this time. They put it all together. Today was a day they just wanted it.”

Marmol, who grabbed six rebounds and shot 6 of 9 from the charity stripe, summed up Edison’s desire.

“We worked so hard to get here,” Marmol said. “Every game we go into we want to keep playing and staying together as a family. We work so hard every single day and we want to show people what we can do.”

The Eagles, after executing a morning walk-through to near perfection, showed, when at full strength, of what they are capable.