The Courier-News from Bridgewater, New Jersey • Page 22

B-6 Monday. March 21. 1983THE COURIER-NEWS Plainfield girls lose in final at Meadowlands Hamilton West wins Group 4 basketball crown ii.ii VfTykT, J. mm SO 'fec J) 1 By BRIAN FLORCZAK Courier-News Sports Writer EAST RUTHERFORD Maybe they forgot to take Exit 16-W off the New Jersey Turnpike. Or perhaps they accidentally showed up at Jadwin Gym instead of the Meadowlands Arena.

Perhaps we'll never know the reason why the Plainfield High girls' basketball team didn't show up for Saturday night's Group 4 state championship game. Granted, there were some players on the court at the Meadowlands Arena wearing red-and-white uniforms that had Plainfield stitched on the back. But it just couldn't have been the real Lady Cards. Why? Well for one thing, the authentic Lady Cards wouldn't have been dominated 61-51 by Hamilton West (26-1). And as for shooting accuracy, the real Plainfield definitely would have connected on more than 26 percent of its field goal attempts.

But whether or not it really was Plainfield on the court Saturday night doesn't matter anymore. What is honest-to-goodness fact is that the Group 4 championship trophy is heading southward to Trenton. "We just weren't sharp tonight." lamented Plainfield mentor Harry Lambert. "These kids are all sophomores and juniors and there was a lot of pressure on them. "I think we had some calls go against us and we lost some of our composure, which is unusual for us.

Have no doubt about it. though. Hamilton West took it right to us." For Lambert and his Lady Cards. Saturday night's sub-par outing was a forgettable end to a memorable season. After blazing their way to the Union County Tournament cham- mistakes of adolescence.

Trailing 50-30 in the the fourth quarter. Plain-field repeatedly looked to its high-scoring guards to get the Lady Cards back in the game. But try as hard as they could. Rene Jones and Dana Williams just couldn't find the range in the Meadowlands. In all.

Jones connected on just 8-of-27 field goal attempts, while Williams was 5-for-21. "I told Rene a couple of times to move it in." replied Lambert, when asked about the outside shots his squad was attempting. "Rene and Dana can hit from the outside, but tonight it just wasn't falling. What we wanted to do was to get the ball inside more to Michelle (Lewis)." When Plainfield did get the ball down low. it was met with fierce defense by the Hornets' 6-foot, 1-inch center Tracy Quinn.

By night's end. the senior had blocked a game-high 8 shots. Refusing to surrender. Plainfield did manage to forge a slight comeback as it reduced the Hornets' lead to 58-49 with :26 left to play. However, that was as close as Plainfield would come to a championship.

"The girls were loose and I was loose." said Hamilton West coach Mickey Kessler. "The hard part was getting here and I thought if we could get by Neptune we could win it all. "This was the easiest of our tournament games." he continued. "Give them credit though, they were down by 20 and boom-boom-boom, they had it down to nine." HAMILTON WEST (II) Hutchinson 2-4-8. Helmlinger 7-8-22.

Qumn 6-2-14, McGarngle 2-5-9. Del Aversano 2-2-6. Dyos 1-0-2. TOTALS. 20-21-61 PLAINFIELD (SI) DiWaggio 1-0-2.

Silas 1-0-2, Lewis 2-4-8. Williams 5-5-15; Jones 8-6-22, Sargent 1-0-2 TOTALS 1815-51 Hamilton W. 14 14 14 19 41 Plainfield II 23 51 Courier-News Plainf ield's Rene Jones, right, Jennifer DiMaggo following defeat. Courier-News Photo By Vince Kremer Dana Williams of Plainfield High puts up an underhand shot in championship game against Hamilton West. Scott girls stop Somerville Photo By Vince Kremer is comforted by teammate quarter.

Plainfield's expected comeback attempt never materialized. Instead, the Lady Cards found themselves being outscored 22-7 over the next 10 minutes. "The attitude was different this year as compared to last." commented Lambert, whose 1981-82 team lost to Atlantic City 62-60 in the Group 4 title game. "The girls were more hyper this year, while last year's squad got the job done. "Right now we have to get this club in sync, but that will come in time.

It's a young team" But along with youth comes the Couner-News Photo By Walter Caiahan Irks? fr three guards that quick." he admitted. "My assistants kept saving, 'they'll get But I told them they're not going to get tired. Every time you looked up they were right with us." Three minutes into the second period Somerville led 18-15 and still was in control. "We had them." lamented Somerville coach Jerry Moore. "We were taking our time and doing what we do best." With just over four minutes to play in the half, though.

Scott started doing what it does best run. run. run. Senior guard Countess Irvin (26 points) was the Scotties' leader, scoring the final nine points for her team in the half. While Irvin was running wild, the Pioneers had trouble putting the ball in the basket.

By halftime, Scott owned a 27-20 lead." "The game changed in the last four minutes of the second quarter." explained Moore. "We started getting out of our offense and letting them into theirs. They got into their running game and that's just what we didn't want to get in." At the beginng of the seccond half, Scott extended its lead to 31-22 and looked to be pulling away, But Somerville wasn't ready to let the Scot-ties get away and closed to within four points behind the inside play of 6-foot, 1-inch sophmore center Re-gina Jeffries. All day. Jeffries (15 points.

14 rebounds) battled under the boards with Scott's Sandy Prophete, who frustrated the Pioneers' efforts to get the ball inside to their center. "They did a nice job covering Jeffries." observed Moore. Down by seven heading into the final period. Somerville was in desperate straits after Scott outscored the Pioneers 9-2 in the first 3z minutes. With 3 minutes to play, Somerville lost any remote chances of winning when junior guard Harris fouled out.

Without Harris, the Pioneers couldn't move against the swarming Scotties and managed just two points from that point on. Another factor in the Pioneers' demise was poor foul shooting (4for-14). Moore pointed out that his team had trouble at the foul line in the past but had not really needed it to win earlier games. Overall, Moore reflected positively on the game: "Our kids never gave up. That's the type of team they are.

I thought we matched up well, it was just a matter of whether we could handle their fast break." "I'm not disappointed." added Moore, "We were in the game and they knew we were out there." The Mid-State Conference champion Pioneers finish their season with a mark of 23-6 while Scott's title victory gives it a 25-4 record. CLIFFORD J. SCOTT (56) Stephenson 4-4-12, White 1-2-4, Campbell 1-0-2; Irvin 10-6-26 Patilla 1-1-3; Prophete 2-5-9 TOTALS: 19-18-56 SOMERVILLE (40) Harris 4-0-8. Jeffries 6-3-15. Darby 4-0-8, Milligan 4-0-8; Johnson 0-1-1.

TOTALS: 18-4-40 Scott 11 16 13 16 56 Somerville 14 6 13 7 40 By TIM WILSON Courier-News Sports Writer EAST RUTHERFORD The Somerville High girls' basketball team climbed to the top of the beanstalk, and. unfortunately, awakened a sleeping giant. But before the Lady Pioneers could make off with the golden goose, the giant named Clifford Scott High School of East Orange sent the Lady Pioneers crashing to a 56-40 loss in the Group 2 state championship game Saturday at the Meadowlands Arena. Before the swift-footed Lady Scot-ties collected their second consecutive title, however, they suffered a rude awakening. Surprised by the Lady Pioneers.

Scott fell behind early. "I swear I didn't know those girls were that tough," said Scott coach Tom King, referring to the Somerville team. "We weren't expecting them to be that quick." The Lady Pioneers took a 14-11 lead at the end of the first quarter by using their quickness to force turnovers by the Scotties. In the first half, Scott committed 17 turnovers. In addition.

Somerville was allowing Scott very few second shots when it did get the ball down court. King admitted his team was in trouble at the outset. "When we started out. we were a little overconfident." he said. "We had to reach and go way back within ourselves.

We could've folded. I feel we were lucky, and I'm glad it's over." The Pioneers' three guards, Daina Harris. Cindy Milligan and Shawn Darby (eight points each) really impressed King. "We haven't run into pionship last month, the Lady Cards (21-6i had seemingly forgotten how to lose With the UCT title tucked safely into their tail feathers, the Lady Cards marched into state tournament play by posting four consecutive wins to advance to the Group 4 title game. But after playing near-perfect basketball for almost two months.

Plainfield simply fell apart on a evening where almost nothing went right for the white-and-red. Trailing 28-23 entering the third points we'd have a chance to win the game." Gaita explained. "We made an adjustment at halftime and double-teamed (Caitlin) Hadtke. In the last 4''2 minutes we did the job." That's when the Red Raiders took their first lead since they scored the opening basket of the game. A pair of free throws in a one-and-one situation by senior forward Veronica Dumas, who paced Keyport with 16 points, gave the Red Devils a 46-45 advantage with 4:33 remaining in the game.

Only 7'z minutes earlier, Key-port was down 39-31 and sinking fast. "She (Dumas) killed us in the second half." Kahn pointed out. "I really didn't think we made too many mistakes; we just didn't have an outside game today." Overall, the Pioneers shot a dismal percent from the floor 17-43 but connected on only 6 of 21 attempts from the field in the second half (29 percent). Hadtke, who led all scorers with 20 points and 11 rebounds for New Providence, couldn't do it alone. After an exchange of baskets, Key-port went ahead to stay with 3:30 to go on more clutch free-throw shooting, this time by senior forward Col-een Brady, who sank both ends of a one-and one to put her squad up for good at 48-47, "I always feel good when we're in a situation to win games at the foul line, "Gaita explained.

"Our girls can shoot from there well." Witness the fact that the Red Raiders connected on 10 of 11 from the foul line, including six straight in the fourth quarter. The Pioneers, however, still had a chance. But the Pioneers threw the ball Daina Harris, left, of Somerville High battles Robin Campbell of Clifford Scott for possession of the ball during Saturday's championship game. Rally beats New Providence f- ummmmmmmmmmmmmm Ji 1.1. 1 1 win 1 nilirilll 1 Ifll 1-1-, mmMJ By STEVE SMITH Courier-News Sports Writer PISCATAWAY fourth quarter Oh, to start that all over again.

Please. After controlling the tempo of the game for three quarters, the Pioneers of New Providence suffered through a final quarter of frustration and dropped an emotional 54-53 heartbreaker to the clutch-shooting Keyport Red Raiders in the Girls Group 1 state championship basketball game Saturday afternoon at the Rutgers Athletic Center. "They (Keyport) were getting the ball behind our defense in the second half," noted Pioneer coach Bob Kahn, whose squad ended the year at 22-7, the best record ever at New Providence. "They were just getting the ball up court quicker than we were. I had seen them before, Kahn continued.

"They were as solid a team as we played all year. It was tough to change the tempo in the second half. I kept calling timeouts but it didn't work toowell." No it didn't. The Red Raiders, who posted a 24-5 mark on the season, continually connected on clutch baskets down the stretch and stormed off the court replacing Gloucester Catholic as this year's new champion. "This win is great," gushed Key-port coach Anthony Gaita.

"This is great exposure for our kids. The whole program has to be helped by this experience, "I told my girls before the game that if we could hold them (New Providence) to between 50 and 55 away once and had the ball stolen once in the last three minutes to help seal their fate. Senior guard Rox-anne Dankovich's two free throws with 27 secondsleft spelled "Wait until next year" for the Pioneers as Keyport completed its scoring. A 19-12 fourth quarter margin won this one for the Red Raiders. Despite the heart-breaking defeat, Kahn was like a proud new father when he reflected on New Providence's best season yet.

"Although we came up a little short today, I have no regrets," Kahn said. "We can't be any happier the way the season has gone for us. We have a great group of kids. "If anyone had told me in September that we'd be playing basketball in March, I'd have thought they were crazy, Caitlin (Hadtke) and Janice (Higgins) did a great job for us all year long, but we had a terrific supporting cast. This season was something they won't forget the rest of their lives.

GAME NOTES: Keyport used a 2-3 zone throughout the game, while the Pioneers switched from the 1-3-1 to man-to-man. New Providence outrebounded Keyport 32-12, with senior forward Linda Burke grabbing 10 to go along with Hadtke's 11.. who finished with 12 points (including six clutch points in the finalquarter) was named the game's most valuable player. KEYPORT (54) Brady 5-2-12; Dumas, C. 3-2-8, Dumas 6-4-16, Dankovlch 5-2-12, Mollica 3-0-6.

TOTALS 22-10-54. NEW PROVIDENCE (S3) Hadtke 5-10-20; Higgins 4-4-12; Burke 6-2-14; Campana 2-0-4; Hallock 0-3-3 TOTALS 17-19-53. Keyport 16 1 11 New Provldtnca 18 10 13 II 51 Janice Higgins of New Providence High looks for an opening game against Keyport. Courier-News Photo By Walter p. Caiahan in Saturday's championship.