Season Review: Lady Aviators Save Their Best for Home

Some of the best played games this season for the Hasbrouck Heights girls basketball team came at home.

The Lady Aviators had a tough season finishing with an 8-18 record, but at least six of the games came against three of the better teams in the South Bergen area in Immaculate Conception, Wood-Ridge and St. Mary.

For Heights two of the best played games came against Wood-Ridge and St. Mary on Jan. 12 and Feb. 17, according to Hasbrouck Heights head coach Brett Roscoe. “We led by eight points at one point and they (St. Mary) were never in the safe zone,” said Roscoe.

And against neighborhood rival Wood-Ridge, the Lady Aviators were winning in the fourth quarter only to drop a 45-35 decision in January. The loss to the Lady Gaels was a 58-46 decision in February.

For most of the season Heights played well against some tough opponents but could not put together the four quarters against the better squads.

Leading the way this season for the Lady Aviators was a pair of seniors in Daniella Castellanos and Nicole Callen. Castellanos was named to the All North Jersey Interscholastic Conference Meadowlands first team while Callen garnered an All NJIC Meadowlands second team nod.  Joining the senior pair on the All NJIC team was junior guard/forward Kristine Dugay who was named to the All NJIC honorable mention.

For Castellanos it was end of an era where she became the 11th player in the history of the school to score more than a thousand points.  It was also the first Hasbrouck Heights basketball player to reach that mark in a decade.

Castellanos finished with 1,019 points and averaged 13 points. The senior also had six steals and two rebounds a game.

"She was our best player and we asked her to do everything," said Roscoe. "She was our floor general and the heart of our defense. There's nothing she couldn't do. She left her heart on the floor and had no regrets."

Castellanos is planning on attend Marywood University right outside Scranton, Pennsylvania and play basketball.

In Callen she only averaged four points a game, but had five rebounds and doing it against some pretty tall kids. "She was really undersized against the opponents," said Roscoe about Callen who is about 5-feet-7 or 5-feet-8 inches. "She's probably 120 pounds soaking wet.

"Roscoe pointed to the battle with St. Mary's Sara Ismail who stands at least a half-foot taller than Callen. "She played her tough head to head," said Roscoe who pointed out that Callen blocked a shot by Ismail in the game.

One of the players that Roscoe will be looking towards next season is Dugay who improved as the season went along especially on the boards. "She really came up with the rebounds especially toward the end of the season," said Roscoe. "She's not a flashy player but doesn't give up anything. I'll be looking for her to do more next year."

For 2012-13 Roscoe hopes that the success from the junior varsity who were 18-4 portends to the varsity level.

But the Heights head coach will definitely miss her seniors including Castellanos, Callen, Pauline Paulino, Jenny Dowd and Jordyn Anderson.