Girls basketball: Franklin blasts Rutgers Prep to win first Somerset County title
Simeon PincusFRANKLIN (Somerset) – There’s something about a championship trophy being on the line that brings out the best in the Franklin High School girls basketball team.
The Warriors shocked the girls basketball community last season by taking a team stocked with underclassmen to an unlikely Tournament of Champions win, so, naturally, this year’s expectations were off the charts. So after a 4-6 start that featured two Skyland Conference Delaware Division losses to Rutgers Prep – both by three points or less -- and setbacks to a host of other state and out-of-state powers, Franklin had some proving of itself to do.
With the elusive county championship up for grabs Saturday at Franklin High School, the second-seeded Warriors seemed to recapture that tournament magic that carried them to a state title a year ago, as they more than made up for missing last year’s final, scoring a decisive 68-49 victory over top-seeded and three-time defending champion Rutgers Prep for Franklin’s first-ever county title.
“Beating teams in the regular season doesn’t really matter,” said Franklin junior Diamond Miller, who led all scorers with 32 points and eight rebounds. “But when it’s win or go home, the best team ends up winning.”
“It’s the growth,” said Franklin coach Audrey Taylor, whose team has now won 13 of its past 14 games and will open its state title defense Tuesday, here against East Orange. “My emphasis as we go through the year is that we’re going to take some bumps and bruises, but if we grow from those bumps and bruises, we’re going to be a better team in the long run. A lot of people (say) I’m crazy with the schedule I put together, and I am. But there’s some sanity inside of my crazy, but the whole point of that is that we’re battle tested, so when we get in these moments, we don’t have that panic. We’re able to play composed and coach them through those tough moments and go back and talk about when we had this before.”
The composure paid off in a big way Saturday, and immediately. Rutgers Prep came out rolling, scoring nine unanswered points in the game’s first 2:12 before Taylor called a timeout to refocus her squad. And it clearly did the job, as Franklin turned up the defensive pressure it lacked early in the game and Keona Schenck hit a free throw to get her team on the board. Miller then netted 11 points in the next 2:26 and Kennady Schenck hit the first of four 3 pointers, helping the Warriors to a 17-14 lead after one quarter, thanks, largely, to nine Argonauts turnovers.
“Everything was just about relaxing,” said Taylor, who watched Kennady Schenck finish with 16 points, while Keona Schenck chipped in 10 points. “I believe in our offense, so I wasn’t really concerned about being down, I was concerned about what we were doing defensively. It was let’s fix this defense, let’s stop them in transition, let’s lock in here. I always say it; if we lock in on one side (on defense), the other side takes care of itself and we start to relax a little bit, and that’s really what it was. It was just to relax and let’s do what we do.”
“At 9-0 I thought, ok, they had a good start, but nine points is not that much,” Miller said. “We just needed to see our first basket go in the hole and from there we kept going.”
The teams battled evenly in the second quarter, with Franklin maintaining a three-point advantage at halftime, before the Warriors pulled away in the third quarter, holding Rutgers Prep to just three field goals and taking a 50-35 lead, before closing it out in the fourth quarter.
The Warriors finished 8-for-18 from beyond the 3-point arc, shooting 45 percent for the game, while the defense held Rutgers Prep to 38 percent shooting and forcing 26 turnovers, including 15 in the first half.
“That was the turning point,” Taylor said. “For shots to start dropping and be locked in on defense, we’re a tough team. So to have that momentum, at that point, was the turning point. And it was a turning point on their faces, as well. It was no more being unsure, are we going to beat them or not?”
“We were feeling it, but we were also ready,” said Miller, who knocked down three 3-point shots. “The last couple of games we’ve been shooting lights out, so we were very much prepared. And after all our struggles at the beginning of the season, we don’t want to feel that way anymore. So to get this W is really huge for us.”
Franklin not only wins its first-ever county title after losing three straight finals from 2013-2015 -- including in overtime in 2014 -- but the Warriors also become the first team not named Rutgers Prep or Gill St. Bernard’s to win the crown since 2007, and the first public school to do it since Hillsborough won the 2006 championship.
For the Argonauts, whose three other losses have come to St. John Vianney, Manasquan and St. Rose, the state’s three top-ranked teams, the loss snaps a 10-game winning streak and marks the second straight tournament meeting with Franklin that’s ended in Rutgers Prep’s elimination. The Argos lost just twice last season, both times to the Warriors, including in the TOC semifinals.
“At the end of the day, they were just better today,” said Rutgers Prep coach Mary Klinger, whose team was led by 20 points and seven rebounds from Leilani Correa. “They guarded and they made shots and we just didn’t. It’s really disappointing for us, but we’re going to regroup. We’re going to get back to practice on Monday and get ready for the state tournament.”
Simeon Pincus can be reached at CNGirlsHoops@aol.com. Follow him on Twitter @SimeonPincus and on Facebook at www.facebook.com/SimeonPincusCN
FRANKLIN (17-7) 17-12-21-18 -- 68
RUTGERS PREP (22-4) 14-12-9-14 -- 49
F – Miller 8-(3)-7-32, Jackson 1-2-4, Grey 2-2-6, Keo. Schenck 2-(1)-3-10, Ken. Schenck 1-(4)-2-16. Totals: 14-(8)-16-68.
RP – Mullins 2-0-4, Tibbitt 3-1-7, Lynch 0-(1)-0-3, Scariatti 0-(1)-0-3, Correa 7-6-20, Lyles 1-4-6, Gamboa 3-0-6. Totals: 16-(2)-11-49.