Home Sweet Home: Lady Rebels Topple Marlboro

After starting their season with back-to-back-road games and a challenging trip to the Bayshore Holiday Classic in Holmdel next week, the Howell girls basketball players were happy to be back on their home court Wednesday night for their game against Marlboro. 

Having beaten A North rival Middletown South on Monday night, the Lady Rebels were looking to continue their hot start as they went for their third straight win.  In the end, a slow start was not enough to stop the home team as they used a combination of inside shots and long range accuracy to pick up a 47-34 victory.

Coach William Gallacher said that while the game did not start out well for his team, he was glad to see that they were able to correct themselves as the contest went on. "We were cold in the first half," he said. "Marlboro did play tough defense, but we definitely got some wide open looks and couldn't capitalize."

The coach said that while his team had trouble getting their offense off the ground, he was proud of the way the Rebels stopped their guests from getting on the board. "The nice thing is when you play tough defense and you limit what they can do against us you figure if you can get hot you can weather it and that's exactly what happened," he said. 

Scoring was almost non existent for the Howell squad in the first half, especially in the first quarter. Senior Sarah Olson got the first points of the game for her team when she was fouled on a lay-up and completed the three point play to make it a 3-0 game. As it turned out those points were half of the six the team scored as they led 6-5 heading into the second quarter. 

Before they went into the locker room at the half, the Rebels started to turn on the pressure as Olson scored a few more points as did junior Shannon Pickett who hit a key 3-pointer and Chelsea James drained a floater in the closing seconds to put her team up 21-13 at the half. 

As the game went on it became clear that Pickett was not the only long range shooter the Rebels had to call on. Her 11 points ended up leading the team in scoring, but she was closely followed by senior Lauren Kolacki who notched 10 points from inside and further outside. Between those two and Olson the girls pulled away for good in the fourth quarter as they held Marlboro to just eight points while they scored 14 points to clinch the win.

Coach Gallacher said Pickett and Kolacki definitely made their presence felt in the game. "Shannon was a huge part [of the win], She hit some tremendous shots." Seeing her play as well as she did was also not a surprise for the coach. "She's the kind of kid where when a team plays a zone we stick her in there because she's deadly from the outside," he said. 

For Pickett, she said she was not looking to lead the team in scoring, but was just playing her normal game, and she has been glad to see how well everyone has been playing together. "We're playing team ball," she said. "We take it one game at a time and we play like we're playing Neptune and we go out there and beat them," she said of the powerhouse Scarlet Fliers. 

As she gets deeper into her last season with the Rebels, Kolacki said every game is important because there are not that many left. "We knew with Marlboro we had lost twice last year and we knew we had to beat them," she said. "We had to play like we did against Colts Neck and they were any big time team." The approach they took to the Mustangs is the same the Lady Rebels plan to take all year long. "We kind of play it like we have to win every single game we play," she said.

Having played Middletown South once this week, and knowing they are playing them again on Monday at Holmdel, Coach Gallacher said his team wanted to make sure there was no let down for the Marlboro game. "We're so focused on that because last year we had a couple games where we felt like we let down and played to the other team's level," he said. "But Marlboro, over the last three or four meetings we have had two overtime games and two buzzer beaters."

The Howell coach said that while the Mustangs lost some key players to graduation last year, he knew they could not be taken lightly. "I figured they may not be as strong as last year, but they played hard." he said. "They are really aggressive and they played terrific defense as well."