Girl’s Basketball Defeats Tourney Host Audubon 42-26

Girl’s basketball traveled to Audubon to take part in the first round of the Audubon Holiday Tournament on Tuesday and returned home with a 42-26 victory over the hosts.

Cinnaminson is now 3-0 and will take on Gloucester in the title game Wednesday at 2pm at Audubon.

It was a low-scoring first half for the Pirates, who trailed 19-17 at the break, due to difficulty shooting and turnovers. The Green Wave were able to force the Pirates into quite a few mistakes in the first half, but could never really pull away from Cinnaminson.

“During the first half we struggled scoring, but I also thought we gave up too many points,” head coach Bret Jenkins said. “We talked about changing some things defensively for the second half and it helped us in the third and fourth quarter.”

Starter Fiona Flynn went down early in the game with an ankle injury and did not return, which forced the Pirates to adapt and run with a different lineup than originally planned.

“I never would have thought that the five who played the majority of the second half would have been the five to play the majority of the second half,” Jenkins said. “But, with the injury to Fiona almost immediately, a couple things changed and we gave it a shot. It wound up working for us.”

Senior Marisa DiLeo scored 10 of her game-high 24 points in the first half. The Pirates had seven different players score at least two points today.

“I think mentally we were more prepared,” DiLeo said. “We started off slow, but in the second half we knew we had to change something and it worked.”

This game was a tale of two halves for the Pirates, who outscored Audubon 25-7 in the second half en route to the win. The Pirates opened the third quarter on a 9-3 run to take the lead for good.

“A lot of different people got in today,” DiLeo said. “A starter went down and everyone had to react differently. Everyone reacted well and it should help us tomorrow.”

Audubon tried to make a comeback, but could not control the ball on either end of the court. Cinnaminson outrebounded and out-hustled the Green Wave the entire second half.

“It tires out teams. You saw it at the end. They were struggling,” DiLeo said. “They barely scored 10 points in the second half. We got some steals and that’s how we went on our big run.”

The Pirates defense, led by Alex Kane, forced Audubon to commit multiple turnovers on inbound passes in the second half that led to a large portion of the Pirates points.

“We weren’t 100 percent sure how much time she was going to be able to play today because she was coming off being sick,” Jenkins said. “She really did great today. She never stops. Even if they break the press, she sprints back to prevent further damage.”

Cinnaminson takes on Gloucester tomorrow at 2pm for the championship.

“Gloucester is a very good team. They have two excellent players in Nicole Velez and Nicole DeMarco who had four three’s in the game against Holy Cross. They play hard and I’m looking forward to it to see how we match up against them. They like to play a little bit uptempo.”

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Cinnaminson Scoring
Marisa DiLeo 24 (3 threes)
Tori Robinson 5 (1 three)
Anne O’Malley 4
Maddie Ogden 3
Alex Kane 2
Angela Oliveira 2
Maddie Parrish 2

Audubon Scoring
Deanna Pineira 11 (1 three)
Grace Borden 6
Madisen Harvey 5 (1 three)
Jacqueline Panico 2
Katie Dunn 2

Cinnaminson Free Throws 8-12
Audubon Free Throws 4-8