Jefferson's Team Black alone atop NCAA League

Posted 7/16/18

Incoming Chestnut Hill College freshman Lauren Crim (left) made this lay-up for Team Kelly Green while guarded by Royal Blue’s Morgan Maturani. (Photo by Tom Utescher)[/caption] by Tom Utescher …

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Jefferson's Team Black alone atop NCAA League

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Incoming Chestnut Hill College freshman Lauren Crim (left) made this lay-up for Team Kelly Green while guarded by Royal Blue’s Morgan Maturani. (Photo by Tom Utescher)[/caption]

by Tom Utescher

Team Black, the Jefferson University summer franchise that includes Mount St. Joe grad Caitlin Cunningham, was one of three teams in the NCAA League that came off the July 4 break with a 4-0 record. The summer Lady Rams ended last week as the lone undefeated team, first knocking off previously unbeaten Team Maroon (University of the Sciences) on Tuesday, 77-72, and then cruising past 1-5 Team Sky Blue (Arcadia University) on Thursday evening.

Maroon rebounded from its first setback with a 58-46 win on Thursday over Team Red, the third team that had started the week at 4-0. Red blends players from all three NCAA Divisions, but last week the squad was missing its contingent of Division II Kutztown University athletes, who were back at school working at a summer camp.

Team Red had beaten Team Line Green on Tuesday to attain a 5-0 mark. At week’s end, Team Black stood alone atop the standings at 6-0, while the initial losses suffered by Maroon and Red dropped them down to 5-1 and into a three-way tie for second with Team Royal Blue, which includes Penn Charter alum Hannah Fox.

As league play resumed after the holiday hiatus, some of the teams that had struggled early in the summer season were now beginning to face one another, so somebody was bound to come away with a victory. A case in point was Tuesday’s clash between ball clubs with players from two Division III schools, Arcadia University (Team Sky Blue) and Penn State Abington (Team Orange). With 2018 Springside Chestnut Hill Academy grad Joelle Bridges scoring 10 points, Sky Blue picked up its first victory by downing Orange, 58-45.

The Kelly Green team featuring a number of Chestnut Hill College players was unable to acquire that first “W”, though. Encountering a Team Purple pack that includes several Division I players (from St. Joseph’s and La Salle), Kelly succumbed, 77-26. Scoring six points apiece in the losing cause were CHC incoming freshman guard Lauren Crim, and Lilly Kuntz, a former Episcopal Academy forward now playing at Middlebury College.

PC grad Fox and Royal Blue ended up playing a pick-up game instead of an official contest, first accepting a forfeit for the record from shorthanded Team Golden Sun.

In the headliner on Tuesday, Black and Maroon squared off against one another. In regular collegiate play, the two squads are both members of the NCAA Division II Central Atlantic Collegiate Conference (along with Chestnut Hill).

Last winter, USciences posted three single-digits victories over Jefferson in their regular-season home/away series and in the CACC championship game. Jefferson’s Team Black started out on fire last Tuesday.

Six different players, including former Mountie Cunningham, scored during a 14-0 opening run for the summer Lady Rams before Team Maroon got on the board with a lay-up with 4:24 remaining in the first (10-minute) quarter.

Team Black’s Alynna Williams (with ball), a Jefferson University guard out of Plymouth Whitemarsh High School, drives toward the basket against Team Maroon in last Tuesday’s showdown. (Photo by Tom Utescher)[/caption]

Alynna Williams, a junior guard out of Plymouth Whitemarsh High School, then got in on the action with a lay-up and three made free throws as Team Black ended the period with a 16-point advantage (23-7).

These teams are too closely matched in talent for that kind of disparity to last for very long. Team Maroon made a steady climb back into contention as the second period unfolded.

Former Gwynedd Mercy shooting guard Brigit Coleman hit two three pointers and later on made a lay-up that got the USciences squad with seven points (30-23) with around four minutes left in the half. Later, Maroon ended the second quarter with a lay-up with 10 seconds to go, going into its halftime huddle now trailing by a single point, 36-35.

Maroon forged ahead for the first time as the third quarter got underway, sticking a pair of treys to go up 41-36. Williams stopped Team Black’s slide, hitting two three-pointers and a 15-foot jumper to account for all the Jefferson points in an 8-2 Ram resurgence. It remained close for the rest of round three, and at the buzzer Team Black senior forward Erin Maher netted a three-point bucket from the top of the key, sending her team into the fourth quarter with a 56-53 edge.

Maroon cut the lead to one with an early lay-up, then Black got some separation with an 8-0 spurt that had three-pointers by Williams sandwiched around a transition lay-up by Cunningham. Under two minutes remained when the Jefferson women led 70-61, but the Marooners had one last run left in them.

Former Shipley School star Colleen Walsh bagged a “three” and then Maroon stole the ball back, missing a breakaway lay-up that would’ve made it a four-point affair at 70-66 with one minute to go. Instead, the USciences squad trailed 70-64 and now had to start fouling to keep the Rams from running down the clock.

Senior guard Jess Kaminski, who had not scored up to this point, nudged Jefferson’s total up to 75 with five-for-six shooting at the free throw line. However, Maroon remained a dire threat thanks to a dynamic finish by guard Jordan Vitelli, who scored on a put-back and then nailed two treys, all in a 20-second span.

Her second triple made it 75-72 with 21 ticks remaining. Maroon now fouled Cunningham instead of Kaminski, but the Mount grad made them pay as she scored the game’s last two points from the foul line with 10 seconds to go.

Williams led the 77-72 victory for Team Black with 19 points, while Maher scored 13 and Cunningham, 10. Vitelli wound up with 17 points for Maroon, which received 11 from Coleman.

Team Black improved to 6-0 on Thursday, when Sky Blue found that its good fortune in Tuesday’s competition would not carry over to the next round of league games. The Jefferson ladies cruised, 66-43, as Maher posted 12 points to head a list of 11 scorers and Cunningham came away with eight. SCH alum Bridges scored seven points for Sky.

Maroon, meanwhile, responded to its first league setback on Tuesday by making the first mark in Team Red’s loss column. Maroon romped to a hefty lead pretty quickly, and although Red reduced its deficit during the second half, the USciences summer squad won, 58-46. Vitelli led Maroon with 14 points.

There looked to be a competitive match-up between Team Royal Blue, which is performing well with a mixture of strong Division III players, and Team Kelly Green, the weakest of the teams that feature a core of DII athletes.

It was close for a half, with Royal holding a 40-37 edge at the intermission. The game got away from Kelly Green and its CHC hoopsters during the third quarter, when they were outscored 20-6. With under three minutes left in the fourth frame, incoming CHC freshman Crim hit a lay-up to make it 74-63, but Kelly was unable to get the lead down to single figures and wound up losing, 80-66.

Royal’s Fox filled the cylinder for a game-high 22 points, while 20 points from her friend, CHC junior Shannon Glenn, led the opposition.

For Team Golden Sun, Chestnut Hill-born Isis Young had to leave the league to return to her team at Syracuse University, and her place was taken by another Division I player, La Salle’s Deja King. In Sun’s 77-67 win over Team Orange on Thursday, King led all scorers with 23 points and Samantha “Bucky” Brusha added 15.

King’s teammate at both La Salle and at South Jersey’s Life Center Academy, Michelle Nichols, was the overall high scorer on Thursday, as her 27 points pushed Team Purple past Team Line Green, 73-61.

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