By Rich Fisher | Correspondent
It’s become pretty apparent the St. Rose of Belmar girls’ basketball players are pretty confident in their abilities.
In defeating defending champ St. John Vianney, 56-31, in the Shore Conference Tournament title game Feb. 24, the fifth-seeded Purple Roses held the third-seeded Lancers to the lowest point total in a championship game since 2007, and won by the largest margin since 1994.
Were the Roses shocked to beat the 13-time champion by so much?
“Not really,” junior point guard Mikayla Markham said. “We wanted to just play our game. We knew that we could take them and get a win.”
Let’s try it again. How about you, Ellyn Stoll?
“Not really, we were just so ready for this game,” the senior guard said. “They knocked us out of the semis last year in this tournament, we put in so much work at the gym every weekend at 6 o’clock in the morning making 500 threes. We’ve done it all and this shows how much we’ve done.”
It’s the kind of mindset coach Joe Whalen expects from his team.
“My rugby team’s motto is ‘Nobody impresses us but us,’” Whalen said. “We’re kind of adopting that without rubbing it in people’s noses.”
It was an impressive effort at Monmouth University for St. Rose (24-3), which won its fourth SCT championship and first since 2012. The Purple Roses were beaten by Manasquan in the finals in 2014 and 2015, and had dropped four straight games to Warriors in state or conference tournament play.
St. Rose finally reversed that trend by beating Manasquan, 68-59, in overtime in the semifinals, but there was never any worry the Roses would let down in the finals. This was a team dominated by veterans going against a young Lancer squad that did an outstanding job just getting back to the finals.
“We just had to have all five girls win their battle and we did,” said tournament MVP Jen Louro, who had 13 points, eight rebounds and three assists. “That was our main thing, everybody has to win their individual battle and together we’ll be successful as a team.”
Junior center Lucy Thomas faced one of the biggest challenges among the match-ups. Bound for Monmouth, the Ocean Township transfer was up against Kimi Evans. The lone returning starter from last year’s Tournament of Champions winner, Evans is headed for Seton Hall and is the Lancers most dangerous offensive player.
But Thomas won her battle, limiting Evans to 10 points and four rebounds while collecting 15 points, seven rebounds, three assists and three steals.
“She stepped up to the challenge,” coach Joe Whalen said. “I’m really proud of her. She made a couple of really good moves inside with two girls hanging on her. Lucy did a tremendous job.”
Thomas’ efforts helped St. Rose put forth an outstanding defensive performance, especially in the second half when it held SJV to 16 percent shooting and just four field goals. After an Evans bucket pulled SJV (22-4) within 24-21 near the start of the second quarter, the Lancers went the next 8:19 without a point. By that time, St. Rose had opened a 42-21 lead with 6:11 remaining in the game.
“Lucy did a great job in the first half against Kimi and we all did a good job knocking down our shots,” Louro said. “We knew at halftime we were up, we weren’t gonna let them come back. We decided we need to pull away right now, this is it, we just gotta keep going.”
“We really turned it on in the second half,” Stoll said. “The guards were helping on Kimi Evans, which was a great help, poking the ball away when they tried to feed it inside to her. We really put pressure on her, and we put pressure on the guards when they tried to throw it inside and all around. We played awesome defense and really communicated with all we did.”
SJV shot 22 percent (11-for-50) for the game and committed 13 turnovers. Markham felt the Roses executed defensively exactly the way it was drawn up.
“We really wanted to give them some pressure they hadn’t seen before,” she said. “We put pressure on the ball and doubled inside when they got it into their bigs. It was really successful from what we practiced leading up to this game.”
Markham also chipped in offensively, scoring six of her eight points in what proved to be a pivotal third quarter.
“We really wanted to bring out some of their bigs off the ball screens, like we have been doing in some past games,” she said. “It ended up being successful in the third quarter.”
The quarter ended with Louro grabbing a long rebound, then falling backward along the baseline and draining a shot at the buzzer to make it 39-21.
“That was a great play,” Whalen said. “It was a hustle play. We said if we win the effort plays, the hustle plays, the 50 50 plays we’re gonna win this game.
“You could see the air go out of them after that, like ‘What do we have to do?’ It was a big-time play. Every game you look back on a few plays, and that was a play you look back at.”
One of many, which combined to give St. Rose one of the most dominating SCT title wins in years.