By DAVE O’SULLIVAN
Staff Writer
On X @GDsullysays
ATLANTIC CITY — Lauren Cella has made thousands of free throws in her life, but none bigger than the pair she sank with 8.5 seconds to go in Tuesday night’s Cape-Atlantic League Tournament semifinals at Atlantic City High.
Cella calmly stepped to the line and sank both free throws, giving fifth-seeded Holy Spirit at 58-54 lead over top-seeded Wildwood Catholic Academy. The Crusaders’ final possession ended without a bucket, and the Spartans hung on by that same score in a back-and-forth game that will live long in the memories of Spirit fans.
Holy Spirit (18-8, 6-6 Cape-Atlantic American) advances to Saturday’s league championship game at noon at Egg Harbor Township High against No. 2 Middle Township, a 53-36 winner over No. 6 Our Lady of Mercy Academy in the other semifinal.
“It’s very hard in that time to get your mind straight and set on scoring (those free throws). I just had to focus in,” said Cella, a junior who has only missed three free throws all season.
With the game tied at 49 with less than two minutes to play, Holy Spirit senior Ava Catona stepped up with the biggest shot of her career, nailing a 3-pointer from the left corner to put the Spartans up, 52-49. They wouldn’t trail again the rest of the way.
“They were playing off and I knew that’s my shot. It was straight on, so I had confidence in the shot. Once a few started going in (earlier in the game) I started getting more confidence, and a few other girls were making some threes, so the shots were falling,” said Catona, who credited a 20-minute pregame shootaround with Spirit’s ability to hit big shots all night. “We knew we were going to win from the start, we had confidence. I just brought (a lot of confidence) to the game today. Obviously, I had nerves coming into the game because it’s the semifinals, but I had confidence in us.”
“We’re two different types of teams, but I think we’re evenly matched. Our guards and our quickness can help us a lot of times on offense, but our lack of size can hurt us on defense,” said Spartans coach Scott Meile, in his first year at Holy Spirit after coming over from Oakcrest. “Sometimes you get into matchups where you’re making shots and those shots are outweighing the lapses on the defensive end. But I thought, defensively, we played much better in the second half. We rebounded the ball incredibly well compared to what we typically do.”
The game was about as evenly matched as you can get, as neither team outscored the other by more than two points in any of the four quarters. Wildwood Catholic took an early 25-20 lead on a 3-pointer from freshman Damiya Carter, but Spirit stormed back to take a 29-28 lead into halftime. The largest lead either team had in the second half was when Sabrina Little hit two free throws to put Spirit up, 56-51, with 24 seconds left.
But Wildwood Catholic (21-5, 11-1 CAL American) answered as Lily King drained a 3-pointer with 12.7 seconds left to get the Crusaders within 56-54. That set up Cella’s heroics less than five seconds later. Holy Spirit’s last win over Wildwood Catholic came seven years ago, in February of 2018.
“We had leads on them in the second half the first time we played them, and came back from down by 20 the second time to cut it to four, so we knew we could play with them,” Meile said. “We were looking forward to the matchup when the pairings came out.”
“It means a lot to us. Right from the start we had the determination to get to the final,” Catona added. “(Meile) was a change from coach Tim (Whitworth) but we adjusted well and bonded.”
“Last year, we were in this same position, against Wildwood Catholic here in Atlantic City, and we lost. We really wanted that win this year, we came out strong and we got it. That was definitely a lot of motivation. Last year, we lost all three times to Wildwood Catholic and this year, during the regular season, we lost two times to them, so we really wanted this win so badly. We came out and gave it our all,” Cella said. “This game was insane, I had goose bumps the whole game. It was back-and-forth the entire time. It was a really good game. We pulled it out this time, we played a perfect game.”
WHAT’S NEXT: No. 5 Holy Spirit vs. No. 2 Middle Township, Cape-Atlantic League Tournament championship game, Saturday at noon at Egg Harbor Township High. Wildwood Catholic awaits its matchup in the opening round of the state playoffs.
