The mounting obstacles proved to be too much for Warren Hills Regional High School’s girls basketball team on Saturday afternoon.
Newton’s big shots were just the last addition to the list.
The second-seeded Blue Streaks fell to No. 6 Newton 55-42 in the Hunterdon/Warren/Sussex Tournament semifinals at Wallkill Valley Regional High School.
The Braves (15-7) advance to meet top-seeded High Point, which defeated Hunterdon Central 45-33, in the county final on Friday night.
The teams went into halftime tied at 25. Warren Hills took a 27-25 lead on a bucket from senior Mini Ajayi with 4:12 left in the third quarter, but Newton senior Jasmine Luciano quickly answered with a 3-pointer.
That was the trend for the rest of the period. Each time the Blue Streaks (15-6) scored, the Braves provided an answer, typically in the form of a 3.
“They hit 3s that you’ve got to tip your hat to them,” Warren Hills coach Meghan McGeehan said. “At times, when we were starting to build momentum, they hit a shot that took the wind out of our sails.”
The Blue Streaks were held scoreless in the game’s final two minutes as Newton closed out the contest on an 8-0 run.
“We just struggled with relaxing and executing offensively,” McGeehan said.
Warren Hills had an uphill battle even before the game tipped off. The Blue Streaks have been almost impossibly snake-bitten this winter, suffering three season-ending injuries to important contributors.
First, junior Stephanie Veneziano was lost. Then, her replacement, freshman Heather Laffan went down. The latest injury was the most damaging as junior Devyn Gara, the team’s top scorer with 15.5 points per game, suffered a knee injury at the end of January.
“That’s something that we have no control over,” Meghan McGeehan said. “I told the kids that one player or two players didn’t get us here. It was a team effort to get us the No. 2 seed. We never played 1-against-5.”
Gara’s season-ending prognosis, however, sent shockwaves through the group.
“Everybody was in tears at practice,” McGeehan said. “It took us a good 20 minutes just to get them back on the court.”
The rash of injuries has put the ball in the hands of younger players, some of whom are in unfamiliar positions.
“Kids that had the luxury of having the attention taken off of them, now don’t have that luxury,” McGeehan said.
Ultimately, the Streaks are using all the playing time for underclassmen constructively.
“We’re trying to look on the bright side,” McGeehan said. “To their credit, they haven’t stopped playing, haven’t stopped fighting … We played great against Sparta last week (in the H/W/S quarterfinals). I just really would have liked to see us finish.”
Ajayi finished with 11 points for Warren Hills. Sophomore Lexi Westley, one of the new starters, also had 11.
Sophomore Kaitlyn Lynch had a team-high 14 points for Newton, which hit nine 3-pointers.
The Blue Streaks will press on. After ending the regular season with North Hunterdon and Pope John XXIII, they host Nutley on Feb. 28 in the first round of the NJSIAA North 2 Group 3 tournament. Still, the frustration of bad luck derailing their county tournament aspirations was clear on the faces of the Warren Hills players afterward.
“It’s definitely disappointing because this is the highest, I think, we’ve been seeded in probably 20 years,” McGeehan said. “It’s the best start to the season (12-2) we’ve had in that many years.”
Kyle Craig may be reached at kcraig@lehighvalleylive.com. Follow him on Twitter @KyleCraigSports. Find Lehigh Valley high school sports on Facebook.
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