By DAVE O’SULLIVAN
Staff Writer
On X @GDsullysays
PISCATAWAY — Cherry Hill West High guard Kirsten Gibson is nearly to 1,000 career points. She’s only a sophomore.
When you have a scorer of that ilk, you let her take a shot whenever she wants.
After a sluggish first 12 minutes in the Group 3 state championship game at Rutgers University’s Jersey Mike’s Arena on Saturday afternoon, Gibson decided it was time to take the game over and go get that championship ring for the Lions.
With 3:20 left before halftime, Gibson nailed a 3-pointer from the left corner. She followed that up with another 3-pointer, then a steal-and-layup for her own personal 8-0 run that gave West a 20-10 lead on Chatham, one of the top teams in the state all season. The Cougars came in ranked No. 3 in the state behind Morris Catholic and Paul VI, but they were no match for Cherry Hill West, as the Lions dominated from the second quarter on and won 34-19 to claim the first state title in program history.
“I’m just so thankful and grateful for my teammates and everything that we’ve been doing. We started in the early summer and everything we’ve done has paid off, that was our most complete game this year and we saved the best for last,” said Gibson, who scored more than 500 points this season and averaged 18 points per game. “We needed something to get us going. Obviously our defense led to our offense the whole game, and with that run we brought the game to ourselves. We just had to keep doing what we were doing.”
West played absolutely stifling defense, led by senior guard Julia Lewis, who’s assignment was Chatham star Ella Kreuzer, who’s committed to play Division I basketball at Bucknell University next fall. Lewis limited Kreuzer to just four points and broke the senior’s string of 23 straight games scoring in double figures. Kreuzer finished her career with more than 1,800 points.
“All week we’ve been working really well, we went over a ton of their plays and worked on how we were going to play defense on them. Today we played phenomenal defense and held their best player (Ella Kreuzer) to just (4 points). We worked really hard all week. Our shots were falling on offense. It was a low-scoring game, but we were able to get it done. I’m really proud of this team,” Lewis said. “We played good defense and kept getting a lot of rebounds and limiting their second-chance points, and they had to start fouling.”
“Julia Lewis is the No. 1 reason this program is where it is today, from what she’s been able to do from a basketball standpoint and also from a leadership standpoint. It’s easy to follow her because she does all the right things all the time,” said Cherry Hill West coach Dan Butler. “She’s the best defensive player we have and she was going up against a Bucknell commit, and that girl can flat-out play. She can shoot from the perimeter, she can get to the basket, she’s a great passer. But Julia just played her tight, matched her every move, kept her off the three-point line, kept her uncomfortable. She only had one field goal the entire game and I think that’s a testament to Julia’s defense.”
West (25-4, 8-0 Olympic Patriot) took a 26-17 lead into the fourth quarter, then blew the game open with a run to start the final frame. Lewis completed a conventional 3-point play, then set up Danielle Short for an inside bucket, and after Short hit a free throw, the Lions had a commanding 32-17 lead with 2:50 remaining in the game.
The Lions held Chatham (31-3, 10-0 NJAC American) to just seven points in the entire second half.
“Everyone stayed calm, cool and collected and didn’t try to do too much,” Gibson said. “Everyone has their own role on this team and we all came together and did everything we could to win this state championship.”
Added Lewis, “it feels so good. We tried not to let the arena and stadium distract us from the game, and we did a great job of that, but it was pretty cool to play in this place.”
“Once we denied the three-point line we took them out of their strength and what they wanted to do today. We always take our defense into easy offense and I think that’s what happened,” Butler said. “It’s pure joy. I’m elated with the outcome, of course, and I’m just really proud of the effort from our girls against a great team. Chatham is a loaded team with a ton of talent, and an experienced team. They were in the state championship last year and returned a great group. They can really shoot, they can defend, they’re smart, they’re disciplined, they are well coached — they have all the makings of a championship team. But we just went out there and tried to focus on us and what we did so well to get to this point, and I think that’s what got us the championship in the end.”
Butler credits West’s tough schedule with preparing the Lions to make a championship run. Their four losses came against Middle Township, Bishop Eustace, Paul VI (a team that played for a state championship this season) and Lenape, last year’s Group 4 state champion. The Lions beat Cherokee and Moorestown twice each, Haddon Heights and Egg Harbor Township, and won nine straight games to finish out the season.
“In the SJIBT (South Jersey Invitational Basketball Tournament) we play in, going up against the inevitable Olympic Conference stacked schedule that we see, and we saw that in the SJIBT as well with the likes of Lenape, Paul VI and Cherokee. We held our own, and despite losing to Lenape — last year’s Group 4 state champs — and losing to Paul VI, who was in the state championship (on Friday night), we played really well and battled,” Butler said. “We had opportunities to beat both those teams, so I think learning from losing and gaining confidence really helped spearhead a nice winning streak to finish the season out.”
The coach couldn’t say enough about Gibson, who took this team on her back in the championship game, scoring a game-high 16 points — nearly equaling the entire Chatham team.
“She’s a flat-out stud. And it’s her confidence. She comes to the court with a sense of arrogance that’s quite impressive for a sophomore,” he said. “We got a couple of stops that allowed us to be a little more free and confident on the offensive end. Not to say that she’s never met a shot she doesn’t like, but she’s never met a shot where she didn’t think she could hit it. That’s confidence. She doesn’t take bad shots and that’s why she knows she has the green light from me at all times. She has the basketball awareness and I.Q. to make sure she’s taking good shots, and she comes through.
“El-Anita Joe Samuel rings a bell. She had a standout freshman year taking Lenape to a state championship with Alexa Henry,” Butler continued, when asked about a comparison to Gibson’s contemporaries. “Besides those two, in all my years of coaching soccer and basketball, there’s nobody quite like Kiersten. She’s amazing. (Her threes) opened up the inside game and changed the way they had to defend us. She’s a dynamic piece to have. When she’s playing well — just like when Julia’s playing well, when Molly (Bovell) is playing well, Addy (Petti), Danielle (Short) — all five of them, it’s a little give-and-take. When one’s not having the greatest game the others are there to support and do all the other things and variables that help a team win.
Now Butler and his coaching staff have to get to work on figuring out each player’s ring size so he can make the call to order those coveted state championship rings.
“It’s personally been nothing but joy — and not just the last four months, but the last four years with this senior class we have,” he said. “It’s been pure joy from the sidelines. Practice is more fun than the games and that tells you something about the kind of girls we have. That culminated today with the pure elation at the end of the game.”
