SP-F Girls Basketball Loses to Westfield, Puts Blue Devils Back on UCT Contenders List

The first time Scotch Plains-Fanwood and Westfield played, Westfield senior Diana Venezia poured in a career-high and game-high 26 points, but the Blue Devils lost 53-42 at Scotch Plains.

This time Westfield senior Amanda Markowski produced a career-high and game-high 23-point performance that also included 11 rebounds and six steals.

This time there were also smiles instead of frowns on the faces of the Westfield players and coaches afterward as the Blue Devils came back to post a 45-36 triumph over the Raiders in Tuesday afternoon Union County Conference-Watchung Division girls' basketball action at Westfield High School.

Both Scotch Plains and Westfield came into Tuesday afternoon's league clash with momentum they wanted to extend.

Westfield was 7-7 and just reached the .500 level for the first time after winning five of six and its last two.

Scotch Plains had won two of three to improve to 4-9 and was seeking a sweep of the conference series.

Westfield, which is now over the .500 mark for the first time at 8-7 and has now won three in a row and six of seven, is back in the mix of teams to be considered for the Union County Tournament championship.

The UCT, which Westfield won for the first time in 2008, will be seeded Feb. 10.

Westfield was 1-5 when it lost at Scotch Plains four weeks ago. The Blue Devils, who began the season with three straight losses, are now 7-2 since the first Scotch Plains game, with the losses close ones – 46-40 at home to UCC-Mountain Division foe Cranford Jan. 12 and 44-42 at home to conference foe Summit Jan. 26 on a layup right before the final buzzer.

Westfield is now 6-3 in the UCC's Watchung Division, with five more conference games to go.

The Blue Devils will remain at home for their next two games this week, hosting Rahway Thursday at 4 p.m. and Elizabeth Saturday at 1 p.m. according to their schedule on the school's Web site.

A split of those two games would guarantee Westfield a berth in the North 2, Group 4 playoffs. Saturday is the state playoff cutoff date, but this year certain teams – depending on the circumstances of the section – will qualify with records under .500.

Scotch Plains fell to 4-10 overall and 3-6 in the Watchung Division, with five more conference games to go.

Scotch Plains took a six-point lead of 13-7 at the end of the first quarter after making 4-of-4 three-point field goals in the period behind the shooting of junior point guard Evie Klotz and freshman guard Taylor Sebolao – both making two 3-pointers.

Sebolao – one of the top freshmen in Union County this season, paced Scotch Plains with a 17-point effort.

Westfield took control of the game in the second quarter, outscoring Scotch Plains 13-2 in the stanza.

Markowski, who played smart and aggressive, hauled in seven rebounds in the second quarter, including four on offense. Her only basket of the period, which came after she grabbed one of her offensive rebounds, made the score 20-15 in favor of Westfield at intermission.

Venezia scored nine points in the period, making all four of her free throw attempts, connecting on a 3-pointer from the right side and then driving strong to the hoop for two points.

Her long-range field goal gave Westfield its second lead at 16-15 and first since 2-0. The 3-point bucket also turned out to be the game-winning basket because it put the Blue Devils in the lead for good.

Venezia is the kind of go-to player who goes out on the court and wants to be the person who can take a game over with a big basket, or key rebound, or timely steal.

"Diana can shoot from the outside as well as the inside," Westfield head coach Joe Marino said. "When they decide to double-up on her we have other people and that was proven today with what Amanda scored."

Westfield outscored Scotch Plains 15-11 in the third quarter, with both teams netting 10 points in the fourth.

Venezia, like the rest of her teammates, realizes that the Blue Devils are playing with a lot more confidence now.

Winning will do that to a team.

"Everybody's contributing and we're working on our press, which is definitely a big part of our game now," said Venezia, who will continue on scholarship at the Division 1 level at the University of North Carolina at Wilmington. "Defense too, we've been able to work on that a lot and that's probably our biggest difference."

Westfield had to tighten its defense a bit in the second quarter after Scotch Plains made its four 3-pointers in the first period. The Raiders were able to manage only one field goal in 10 attempts in the second quarter and only made two more 3-point baskets – both by Sebolao - the rest of the way.

"We were kind of rattled in the beginning, but we just had to focus on defense and rebounding," said Venezia, who leads Westfield with a 15-point average. "After the first quarter we started to work on that and we pulled away a little bit. We started out in zone and played a little man-to-man to kind of mix it up a little bit."

In the first game against Scotch Plains, it was Westfield that led after the first quarter 16-7, ending the period on a 9-0 run. The Blue Devils were then held to less than 10 points in each of the next three quarters.

So both conference games this year saw the team that led after the first period go on to lose.

Markowski, who scored a very quiet two points in the first game against Scotch Plains, performed like a player on a mission Tuesday. The 5-5 guard scored the game's first basket, the last basket of the first half and in between jumped high and put herself in the right position to come down with more rebounds than anyone else on the court.

"Awesome," Marino said to describe Markowski's performance. "Our little girls, we've got Amanda and (5-6 Katie) Ponce and they're fast and our big girls go to box out and if they can do that the ball is going to come out loose and they're (Markowski and Ponce) good going to the ball."

After getting fouled quite a bit down the stretch, Markowski went to the line a bunch of times in the fourth quarter and made most of her free throws.

Although Marino might want his scoring a bit more balanced in future games, he'll take the 1-2 knockout punch delivered Tuesday by Venezia and Markowski, who combined for 36 of Westfield's 45 points.

For Markowski, she also sees that the team is playing more cohesively, which is leading to the Blue Devils playing up to their potential.

"We started off on the wrong track and we knew that that wasn't the team that we really were," Markowski said. "We weren't a 1-5 team. We changed our techniques. We originally played man and realized it wasn't working out so we went back to zone. We just change it up every game and see what we need to correct."

Markowski scored six points in the first quarter, two in the second, eight in the third and seven in the fourth on 7-of-8 successful free throw attempts.

"Since we've been kind of on a winning streak, we think this is our time to shine," Markowski said. "We started off rough, but that's not the team we are. This is our time to show everyone that we're not the team that we played like earlier in the season. Our play on defense has been the key factor in our success."

When Westfield was not winning it was easy to put the Blue Devils aside. However, it appears that they are back in the thick of things in Union County, with the county tournament to commence next weekend.

Just what did it take for Westfield to get over the hump this season?

"I've been mixing up some of the combinations and we've been putting a little more pressure on teams and that's making us more aggressive," Marino said. "We tried to get a feel for who belonged where on the offense as well as the defense. That's the difference."

When talking about UCT contenders, you can now add Westfield to a list that includes defending champion Roselle Catholic, Cranford, Summit, Linden and Roselle. That's not even to say that another team in the county couldn't pull off a big upset either.

"Everyone was kind of counting us out of the mix, which was fine," Marino said. "Our girls knew what they could do, we kept a low profile and now we're trying to come up on the radar a bit."

Although Scotch Plains came up short, the Raiders have played better in their last four games, posting a 2-2 mark after starting 2-8.

"I thought in the second quarter the tempo changed a little bit and we kind of played a little on our heels," Scotch Plains head coach Jennifer Ryan said. "In the first quarter it wasn't like that, we had all the confidence in the world."

      WESTFIELD'S 7-2 RECORD AFTER 1-5 START

      Jan. 9 (A) Westfield 39, Rahway 20

      Jan. 12 (H) Cranford 46, Westfield 40

      Jan. 14 (A) Westfield 49, Elizabeth 33

      Jan. 19 (H) Westfield 48, Gov. Livingston 42

      Jan. 21 (A) Westfield 49, Union 40

      Jan. 26 (H) Summit 44, Westfield 42

      Jan. 28 (H) Westfield 46, Plainfield 31

      Jan. 30 (A) Westfield 43, Linden 39

      Feb. 2 (H) Westfield 45, Scotch Plains-Fanwood 36

      SCOTCH PLAINS-FANWOOD'S 2-2 RECORD

      AFTER 2-8 START

      Jan. 26 (H) Scotch Plains-Fanwood 41, Elizabeth 35

      Jan. 29 (H) Union 50, Scotch Plains-Fanwood 44

      Jan. 30 (A) Scotch Plains-Fanwood 44, Plainfield 33

      Feb. 2 (A) Westfield 45, Scotch Plains-Fanwood 36

NOTES: Scotch Plains will next face Linden at home Thursday at 4 p.m. and then play at Summit Saturday at 1 p.m., conference foes the Raiders lost to the first time around.

Scotch Plains junior forward Aysia Peterson, who grabbed a game high 20 rebounds – 10 on offense and 10 on defense – and scored a team-high 14 points in the Scotch Plains home win over Westfield, continues to be out with her knee injury.   

UNION COUNTY CONFERENCE-WATCHUNG DIVISION GAME

S. PLAINS-FANWOOD (4-10, 3-6)         13           2         11         10 - 36

WESTFIELD (8-7, 6-3)                             7          13         15         10 - 45  

SCOTCH PLAINS (36):

Evie Klotz 1-2-0-8

Taylor Sebolao 2-4-1-17

Tara Sweeney 2-0-0-4

Renee Oliver 1-0-4-6

Becca Kreyer 0-0-1-1

Erin Brown 0-0-0-0

Liz Gallo 0-0-0-0

Kelsey Meisch 0-0-0-0

Totals: 6-6-6-36.  

WESTFIELD (45):

Amanda Markowski 8-0-7-23

Diana Venezia 2-1-6-13

Katie Ponce 1-0-0-2

Danielle Miller 2-0-0-4

Nicole Bilica 1-0-0-2

Charlotte Lorentzen 0-0-1-1

Krista Embrett 0-0-0-0

Totals: 14-1-14-45.