Back-to-Back: RBC defeats SJV to win second straight SCT Championship

WEST LONG BRANCH – The trilogy delivered. Red Bank Catholic and St. John Vianney, the top two teams in New Jersey who are both nationally ranked, met for the third time this season with the Shore Conference Tournament Championship on the line on Friday night at Monmouth University and delivered one of the most exciting championship games in recent memory.

Red Bank Catholic built an early 17-point lead which disappeared in the fourth quarter only to regain their composure in the final 3:26 after trailing by three points to beat rival St. John Vianney 53-49 and win their second straight Shore Conference Tournament title and eighth tournament title in program history.

“Who has lost two 1,000 point scorers and won the second year,” Red Bank Catholic head coach Joe Montano asked. “How many people lost two 1,000 point scorers? That is a lot of points to replace and then come back and win again the following year. I think it shows a lot for our guys to do that against a great team.”

In the majority of the box scores for the Caseys you see seniors Addy Nyemchek and Katie Liggio’s names leading the way in scoring, but tonight RBC received the majority of their scoring in the first half from elsewhere. Seniors Tessa Liggio and Sophie Smith combined for 20 of the team’s 22 first quarter points. RBC led 22-6 after the 1st quarter with their largest lead being 22-5.

“We know Addy is going to see two to three kids,” Montano said. “We know certain guys on our team and certain spots on the floor, they [SJV] are not going to play them. So we had to play differently. We had to put other guys in position to score and Tessa [Liggio] shoots the ball really well.”

Liggio finished with a career-high 21 points, with 18 of them coming in the first half. It was not just the point total that made Liggio’s night special, but also her efficiency. The Bucknell commit went 7-for-9 from the field and 4-for-5 from beyond the arc in the game.

The Casey defense helped them jump out to their big lead in the first quarter. RBC forced SJV to turn the ball over 15 times in the game and came up with 10 steals with the majority of them coming in the first half. Six different players came away with a steal in the first half with Katie Liggio finishing with a team-high three steals.

“I thought the first half when we played good defense we got a lot of stuff in transition, which was also a goal of ours,” Montano said. “In the second half it felt like they [SJV] were scoring every time down the floor so we really could not get out on the break.”

The Lancers did not go away in the second quarter. Trailing 27-12, SJV ended the half on a 12-3 run to cut it to 27-24 before Liggio [Tessa] knocked down another three-pointer to end the half. Four different players knocked down a three-pointer in that run for the Lancers.

Both teams kept exchanging baskets in the third quarter until SJV ended the quarter on a 6-0 run to tie the game at 40. The Lancers had a chance to take the lead on the last play, but could not convert the layup.

SJV took their first lead of the game, 42-40, with 7:20 left in the game after Stella Lockhart converted a basket. Lockhart finished with a team-high 17 points and grabbed 12 rebounds.

“She [Lockhart] did a great job of clearing her head,” SJV head coach Dawn Karpell said. “In the first quarter she was a little sped up and I thought she let the game come to her. We made some really good reads. Maddie [Kocis] made some good reads.”

After a quiet first half, Nyemchek began to take over down the stretch. The Indiana commit finished with 13 points with 11 of them coming in the second half.

“I think we have played them so many times that we know each other inside and out,” Nyemchek said. “I think they know my game really well and they did a really good job face-guarding me. I trusted my teammates by getting them open looks and they hit their shots. I know Tessa Liggio and Sophie Smith have hit really big shots and I didn’t need to take the shots that I usually take so I was really proud of them.”

Even in the second half when Nyemchek started to get going, SJV did not make it easy. Senior Charlotte Bradley came off the bench and played a big part in the comeback by the Lancers with her defense and rebounding. Bradley’s defense forced Nyemchek to rely on her fade-away that she has perfected over the years.

“Charlotte played her heart out,” Karpell said. “She played like a senior. She is still doing it a little banged up. I cannot say enough about what she does for us that way.”

SJV went up 49-46, the biggest lead of the game for them, with 3:26 left to play. RBC responded and closed out the game on a 6-0 run. Katie Liggio scored what would wind up being the game-winning basket on a step-through in the lane that she banked off the glass to put the Caseys up 50-49. The RBC defense would not allow an easy shot for SJV and created a couple of turnovers to close out the game.

“We were exhausted, Vianney was exhausted. It was like Ali/Frazier with everybody trying to get to the 15th round,” Montano said. “I am proud of the kids. It would of been easy to give up.”

“Obviously congrats to RBC, I tip my hat,” Karpell said. “They just executed the last minute and a half, two minutes better than us. My team, our girls, I am proud of how they fought back. We came out, we got punched in the nose and you know it could have gone one of two ways. We responded in a big way and we stepped up and did everything we needed to get back in the game.”

RBC is no stranger to Shore Conference Tournament Championship games coming down to the final minutes. Last year, they defeated St. Rose 54-53 on a basket by Tessa Carman in the closing moments.

“They are both completely different teams,” said Tessa Liggio, comparing this championship to last year’s. “Both were very hard, but I think this year was a little more difficult because of the height, but St. Rose, they were gritty and strong. They never stop and so does SJV. This is what we have been wishing for since freshman year when we lost to them [SJV]. We’ve been wishing to come back and beat them and we got that.”

This group of seniors at RBC have made an unbelievable impact since they arrived as freshmen on day one. They will be graduating with back-to-back SCT titles, one Non-Public A State title with an opportunity of a second title in the coming weeks. All seven seniors will be playing in college next season.

“They never played a game at Red Bank Catholic and people were saying this is the greatest group and we have had an undefeated team that was nationally ranked [1999-2000],” Montano said. “So they have had a lot of pressure on them  and for them to do what they did today I thought was great.”

Both teams will rest up and then begin preparing for the South Jersey Non-Public A tournament next week. Red Bank Catholic, who is the top-seed in the section, received a first-round bye and will host the winner of Union Catholic and Princeton Day on Monday, March 2nd. St. John Vianney, who is the second-seed in the section, will host Donovan Catholic on Thursday, February 26th. While it is a loaded section including defending champion Paul VI, there is a very strong possibility that both teams could meet one more time, with everything on the line.