Needing a win to secure their second consecutive Freedom Division title, girl’s basketball went into hostile territory and came out victorious 41-37 over Holy Cross Wednesday night.
“Our whole mentality today was keep our composure,” head coach Bret Jenkins said. “We knew it would be a packed house. For a girl’s basketball game, that crowd and intensity was unbelievable. The girls deserve that on both sides.”
“Our main focus was to stay composed no matter what happened throughout the game. I thought the girls did a great job doing that.”
The Pirates are now 17-5 overall and finish division play with a 7-1 mark, sweeping the season series from the Lancers.
“Coach Jenkins knew we had it in us,” Fiona Flynn (10 points) said. “The win against Pemberton (56-46 Tuesday) helped us get our feet behind us. He told us to go out and have fun.”
Senior Marisa DiLeo led the Pirates with 17 points.
“They were loud in there, we knew it was going to be like that,” DiLeo said. “We just had to block everything out and play the game.”
Things got off to a slow start for both teams offensively as it took 2:15 for either team to register a point in the opening quarter.
It was 9-8 Cinnaminson at the end of the first after the Pirates ended the stanza on a 7-0 run, which was capped off by a Tori Robinson three.
Holy Cross led 14-13 at the half as neither team was able to score in double figures in either of the first two quarters.
“We gave up 14 points defensively, so let’s keep doing that,” Jenkins said about his halftime talk with the team.
“The first four or five minutes of the game we missed a bunch of open shots because of jitters. With that gone, we figured the shots would start to fall a little bit.”
After three, it was 25-25 as the Pirates outscored the Lancers 12-11 in the third. Both teams went on impressive 5-0 runs in the back-and-forth, highly contested third.
“They (Holy Cross) did a good job defensively. The refs let a lot go,” Jenkins said. “The fact that Marisa was able to keep her composure when she was getting knocked down a little bit, the rest of the girls were able to build on it. They could see her being cool, calm and relaxed.”
Cinnaminson spread the ball around in the final quarter as four different Pirates scored either via field goal or from the foul line to come away with the victory.
The game came down to free throws, which the Pirates failed to convert on in the first half (0-6), but made sure they hit down the stretch (9-14 in the second half).
“The fact that we had a freshman (Maddie Ogden) and a sophomore (Flynn) step up and do that, it almost makes you forget they are a freshman and sophomore,” Jenkins said. “And I expect nothing less from Marisa (3-4 from the line in the fourth). She’s incredible. I knew she would make them.”
Ogden hit three of four shots from the charity stripe late in the game right in front of the loud Holy Cross student section.
“You have to pretend no one’s there, block it all out and concentrate on shooting,” Ogden said. “Holy Cross has a lot of good players, so you just gotta try to limit their scoring. They had some great defense.”
“I give credit to Maddie,” DiLeo said. “Being a freshman, first time doing that, she hit some big shots. Credit to her. She hit some big foul shots.”
The Pirates will enjoy the division title for the next day or two, but then it is back to business with just four games remaining before they begin a quest for a South, Group 2 title as the one-seed.
“Now we’re just looking at the playoffs,” Flynn said. “That’s all we’re going to be talking about at practice now.”
“We want to keep on getting better,” Jenkins said. “Staying healthy is very important. We had a pretty ridiculous run in terms of schedule here in the last five weeks. We want to get our legs back a little bit, work on some new things, stay healthy and keep getting ready for the playoffs.”
Cinnaminson takes the court again on Friday with a 6:30pm contest at Burlington Township.
“We want to work on composure, staying together, working together as a team,” DiLeo said of the team’s preparations for the playoffs. “If we lose, we want to know we did everything we could to try to win.”
“We want to use this to prepare us and catapult us into the playoffs,” Jenkins said. “We wanted to play with composure and use this to get the momentum to get ready for the playoffs.”
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | Final | |
| Cinnaminson | 9 | 4 | 12 | 16 | 41 |
| Holy Cross | 8 | 6 | 11 | 12 | 37 |
Pirates Scoring:
Marisa DiLeo – 17
Fiona Flynn – 10
Maddie Ogden – 9
Tori Robinson – 3
Anne O’Malley – 2
[…] Pirates Take Freedom Crown with Win Over Holy Cross […]