By DAVE O’SULLIVAN
Staff Writer
On X @GDsullysays
AUDUBON — Through the first six games of the season, the Audubon High girls basketball team was feeling pretty good about itself. The Green Wave had scored 50-plus points in five of those six games, and no team had come within 20 points of them.
But then on Monday, Audubon got served up a big ol’ slice of humble pie, as host Haddonfield registered a lopsided 51-28 win over the Wave.
On Wednesday night, it was time for Audubon to get back on track.
Smarting from their only loss of the season, the Green Wave smothered Collingswood with relentless pressure defense, forcing more than a dozen turnovers. Getting back to that defensive calling card led to a bunch off offense, as Audubon cruised to a 64-42 victory that put it atop the Colonial Conference’s Patriot Division along with Gateway.
Collingswood, off to a great start under first-year basketball coach Mike McKeown (the school’s football coach), fell to 7-3 overall and is now two games behind Audubon and Gateway in the divisional race.
Audubon got off to a blazing start, racing out to a 25-6 lead midway through the second quarter, and Collingswood spent the rest of the game fighting to make it close. The Panthers got to within 39-26 halfway through the third quarter after a fast-break layup by Tatum Hinson, but every time Collingswood made a run Audubon had an answer. Usually that answer came in the form of sophomore guard Sophia Homa, who scored a game-high 24 points, including three 3-pointers. She also led the way with six of Audubon’s 15 steals on defense.
“I expected everything we’ve been doing. We knew coming into this season we were going to have a great group of girls. There are a lot of returning players. We know what we can do, we just have to go out and execute,” said Audubon senior guard Peyton Marrone, who finished with nine points, 12 rebounds, four assists, five steals and a blocked shot. “Some teams only have one key player, but with our team, everyone on the court is a key player. That takes pressure off because you feel like you can rely on your teammates and trust everybody.”
Audubon (7-1, 3-0 Colonial Patriot) had contributions up and down the lineup. Emma Speyerer had 13 points and a pair of assists; Jules Heck added 11 points, and Kylie Cannaday and Giavanna Heller combined for 11 rebounds, five points, three assists and a pair of steals.
“I just wanted to see us rebound from that tough loss on Monday, and see how we were going to respond. But this is a great group of kids. We got into a little bit of foul trouble. We like to play high pressure — we’ll press the whole game and play man-to-man defense, whatever it takes. We have a bunch of hard-working athletes on this team,” said Audubon coach Bridget Garrity-Bantle. “We had a game plan when we came in and we were looking to execute it. We did it well enough to win. I’m always hard on the girls and I’m always saying we can do a better job and that next game we’ll fix a few things. But these kids are so hard working, they come to practice every day with a positive attitude and we have such great leadership in Peyton, Emma and Kylie. They are amazing, so our youngers players have some great role models.
“I wouldn’t want to coach any other group of girls. We’re little, but we’re scrappy and we’re going to work our butts off to try to win games,” she added. “We just want to remain true to our goals we set for ourselves and working on every game (as it comes). We don’t tend to look too far ahead. We’re just looking to climb the ladder and be at our peak when the state playoffs start.”
If Wednesday’s win was any indication of how the Green Wave will play in states, Audubon fans are probably wishing the state tournament began this week. The Wave were getting offensive rebounds, scoring on putbacks, finding open teammates on back-door cuts, and generally making life unpleasant for the Panthers on both ends of the court. Homa scored twice on putbacks in the final few minutes of the third quarter as Audubon’s lead swelled to 49-30. Collingswood (7-3, 1-2 Colonial Patriot) shaved the deficit to 51-37 early in the fourth on a three from Norah Roseboro, and she hit another at the 3:50 remaining mark to make it 56-42, but by then the deficit was simply too large to overcome.
“Collingswood is one of the top teams on our side of the conference, so we knew we needed to win,” Speyerer said. “We came in off that loss, which wasn’t very good, so we knew we needed to bounce back from that game. (Against Haddonfield) we had turnovers, lazy passes — we tried to get more steals tonight. For the most part this season, other than when we played Haddonfield, we have done that, so we knew we were capable of that, we just needed to do it again.”
Hinson scored 19 points for Collingswood and Grace Eife added 11, but no other Panthers player scored more than eight. Audubon will be looking for similar defensive efforts in tough games coming up against Gateway on Friday and Eastern Regional next week in the South Jersey Invitational Basketball Tournament.
“I think we’re in a good spot right now. Gateway is another tough team on our side of the conference, and we play Eastern on Monday and that’s going to be a tough game,” Speyerer said. “But I think when it comes to conference play, we’re in a good spot right now.”
“We want to have a good feel going into playoffs (in February). We’re looking to get the No. 1 seed (in South Jersey Group 1), but even if we don’t we just want to keep playing aggressive basketball and be one of the higher seeds,” Marrone added.
Garrity-Bantle said there is plenty her players can work to improve upon in the coming weeks, and the Green Wave won’t be looking past anybody. Still, the coach said she likes what she’s seeing, particularly on the offensive side of the ball. The Green Wave have scored 55-plus points in five of their first eight games this season.
“We’re doing well. There are things we need to clean up and look at, but this year they have taken a big jump offensively. We’re always good defensively, we’ll put in good plans and we’ll execute those plans, but then we’ll struggle offensively. But this year, we’ve taken a step offensively and that’s being seen,” she said. “We just have to continue to believe in our shots, trust in ourselves and have that confidence. Everybody has a green light on this team and they know they’re not coming out (of the game) if they make mistakes. We just go. That’s a big thing we’ve talked about since I’ve been coaching here — we’re going to play through mistakes, that’s how we grow and learn. If they continue to come in here and work hard, good things are going to happen.”
WHAT’S NEXT: Audubon travels to Gateway on Friday at 5:30 p.m. Collingswood travels to Gloucester on Friday at 5:30 p.m.
