Lady Pioneers Advance in Public State Semifinals with Victory

With one dominant victory, the Lady Pioneers, , stated loud and clear that they aren't concerned with what they've already celebrated.

Rather, the New Providence girls' varsity basketball team is putting all of its attention into securing future celebrations. 

That much was evident right off the bat yesterday afternoon against Emerson Boro, as the Lady Pioneers crushed the North Jersey, Section 1, Group 1 champion, 41-23, behind stifling on-ball defense and fantastic ball movement. New Providence now moves on to face Haddon Township in round two of the Public State Semifinals.

The Lady Pioneers didn’t show any negative effects of fatigue or complacency coming off the tough overtime win over University in the sectional final on Monday.

“Practice after University, the day after, was extremely tough, we were all sluggish,” senior Kaitlin Cresencia said.  “Our coach (Cap Pazdera) told us, ‘you guys have been in this position before, you know how it feels to play University.  Don’t make it an excuse, it’s not an excuse that we just played University. Use that to fuel you.'”

And fuel them it did.  New Providence blocked four shots and had five steals in the first quarter and didn’t allow Emerson Boro to hit a field goal until there was 4:37 left in the second.  By that time, the Lady Pioneers had already taken an 18-4 lead and were well on their way to advancing.

“After the battle that we went through with University, I wasn’t sure how much gas we had in the tank,” New Providence coach Cap Pazdera said. “So it was really important to get off to a good lead, not have to play with pressure, and not have to come from behind."

"That was our goal," Pazdera added. "We came out real fast and hard to get that lead, and just kind of took the pressure off them where they could play and enjoy it a little bit, and not feel like every possession was an end-all, be-all."

On top of the shutdown defensive effort, the Lady Pioneers balanced offensive attack, which is predicated on constant ball movement to get the defense out of position, was firing on all cylinders early in the game.  New Providence effectively set up open looks on the outside and found Cresencia with space in the paint so that she could dominate.

“We knew that they were a guard oriented team, so if we could find [Cresencia] in the post, then she was going to do a good job dominating whoever was matched up against her,” Pazdera said.  “When she has that one-on-one, she’s very, very hard to stop.”

Cresencia did prove difficult to stop; the senior scored 16 points to lead the Lady Pioneers. 

She combined with sophomore to score 10 points in the first quarter alone, while Monday’s hero swished two mid-range jumpers early on.  Senior forward made it 18-2 New Providence by driving past the defense for a score early in the second quarter before Emerson Boro finally hit its first field goal.  

Cresencia then drew contact on two straight possessions and went 3-for-4 from the foul line to help New Providence take a 24-7 lead into halftime.

“We knew that we were going to have some mismatches against them, and we have a lot of good post players, so we didn’t know who was going to be on,” Cresencia said in describing the first-half offensive strategy.  “Whoever was on, [we needed to] look for that mismatch, look to create passing angles, and when they double down or triple team, cut to open spots where they can get the outlet to, and I think our guards did a great job of getting openings.”

Cresencia came out in the third quarter and scored in the low post again off of an assist from Squeri to make it 26-10 New Providence with 6:45 left, and Culleton’s baseline jumper made it 31-15 with 1:56 left.

Culleton threw an inbounds pass to Cresencia for another low-post score early in the fourth, and Cresencia put an exclamation point on her performance with an offensive rebound and a put back to stretch the lead to 36-17.

Cresencia said that each win just proves that the Lady Pioneers can compete against any team, especially if they play to the level that they did against Emerson.

“I think, after today, it really does raise our confidence and it shows us that no matter what level we’re playing against, we can really hold up to our standard,” she said.

As the road to the state title gets shorter, the competition gets increasingly tougher. But Pazdera said his team is not going to do anything but focus on the next game against Haddon Township.

“We’ve got one more for the Group 1, that’s all we’ve got our eyes set on right now,” Pazdera said.  “Just try to repeat, we’re going to give our best, we’re going to come Sunday, we’re going to hope we’re firing on all cylinders and just try to repeat.”