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‘She’s Larry Bird’: Addy Nyemchek comes through in the clutch to help Red Bank Catholic win the SCT

Scott Stump|February 22, 2025|Last Updated February 22, 2025

WEST LONG BRANCH – On teams packed with talent like the Red Bank Catholic girls basketball squad, the final possession of a close, high-stakes game can be a telling one.

Who is the coach going to give the ball with a championship on the line?

The instant RBC coach Joe Montano called timeout with 26.2 seconds remaining in Friday night’s Shore Conference Tournament final, he knew exactly who that player would be for the Caseys.

RBC was locked in a tie game with St. Rose, and the coach with the most wins in Shore Conference girls basketball history was going to live and die with the decision-making of junior Addy Nyemchek.

“Addy didn’t have her best game, but she’s a great player,” Montano said. “I told her we’re putting the ball in your hands, we’re going to run to spots, we’re taking the last shot – make the right decision.

“She’s Larry Bird. She’s either going to make the shot (or the right pass).”

Wearing green and gold instead of green and white, the 6-foot Division I prospect did her best imitation of the Boston Celtics immortal when she drove hard to her right, beat one defender and then wrapped a pass around another defender in midair right to senior center Tessa Carman under the basket.

Carman, a Monmouth University recruit, powered in a layup with eight seconds left on her future home court to draw a roar from the crowd for what proved to be the winning basket in a 50-48 thriller at OceanFirst Bank Center. The sequence gave RBC its first SCT title in 12 years.

 

“It means a lot,” Nyemchek said. “I think coach Montano has trust in all of us, and it was tied so we had nothing really to lose. I was confident that I could try to make a play, and Tessa Carman was in the right spot, so credit to her making that layup.”

“We trust Addy with everything,” Carman said. “We knew she was going to make the right decision. She made a great pass to me. Me and her have that connection, and I always cut when she’s dribbling.”

Even a teenager like Nyemchek knows about Bird, despite the fact that Larry Legend became a basketball immortal more than 40 years ago.

“I do,” she said before smiling. “He’s definitely one of a kind. It’s an honor to be called that.”

Leading the way

Nyemchek finished with a team-high 13 points and made clutch play after clutch play inside the final three minutes to help bring home the win. Every time St. Rose got a little separation, she made sure the Caseys stayed in striking distance.

It was starting to get nerve-racking for RBC after St. Rose junior Brooke Missry (15 points) splashed back-to-back threes from the corner and then St. Rose got a stop while leading 46-41 lead in the final two minutes. That’s when Nyemchek reached out with her long right arm to strip St. Rose standout Cassidy Kruesi near midcourt, ran down the loose ball and dropped in a layup to cut it to 46-43.

 

“They had momentum at the end of the game, so getting a stop (there) is crucial,” she said. “The energy, and getting up on defense is what we harp on. (Kruesi) is a really, really good ballhandler, so trying to use my length against her really helped.”

“Bench was going crazy, gym was going crazy,” Carman said. “It got us right back in it.”

RBC tied the game on a 3-pointer by Tessa Liggio with 1:28 remaining before St. Rose took the lead back on a bucket by junior star Jada Lynch, who had a game-high 17 points.

In another pressure-packed spot, RBC turned to Nyemchek by lobbing it to her in the post, where she was fouled with 47.4 seconds left in the game.

“She’s exhausted,” Montano said. “We’ve leaned on her the whole year. People beat her up, they play her tough, but she’s Larry Bird. I’m going to put the ball in her hands.”

She calmly sank two of the biggest free throws of her career to tie the game at 48.

“You saw her when we were down two, went to the line and there was no doubt in my mind,” Montano said. “I was setting up what we were going to do in a tie game.”

“I missed a few free throws earlier in the game, so I was making sure that didn’t happen again,” Nyemchek said. “It’s just mental. It’s locking in.”

After RBC produced a turnover on a tie-up with the possession arrow in its favor, Montano called timeout to set the final sequence into motion. Following Carman’s go-ahead basket, guess whose long arms helped force a five-second call against Lynch on an inbounds play to seal the win? Nyemchek again.

It was also fitting that Nyemchek’s heroics happened at Monmouth. Her father, Brian, played basketball for Monmouth University in the late 1980s and early 1990s, where he met her mother, who played soccer for the Hawks.

“Both my parents met here, so it’s pretty cool,” Nyemchek said.

A validation of RBC’s loaded junior class

Not only did the Caseys bring home their seventh SCT title, it showed the full potential of a junior class that entered RBC with sky-high expectations. Nyemchek is part of a group that includes guards Lola Giordano, Katie Liggio, and Tessa Liggio, who all played key roles in Friday night’s win.

In the SCT semifinals against top-seeded Manasquan, Nyemchek had 13 points, eight rebounds, three assists and two blocks, Giordano had 14 points and 6 rebounds and Tessa Liggio added 7 points and 5 rebounds.

“When they came into Red Bank Catholic, people were calling them the greatest class in the history of Red Bank Catholic before they started,” Montano said. “And we’ve only had an undefeated, nationally-ranked team that won 63 out of 64 games (in the past), and people before they even started were saying they were the greatest team that ever played at Red Bank Catholic. They’ve had the bull’s-eye on them from the start.”

Now they’re a key part of a team that brought home RBC’s first SCT title since 2013 in one of the most ferociously competitive tournaments in the state.

“This is the hardest thing in the state of New Jersey to win,” Montano said. “I saw on MaxPreps they named our state bracket one of the top 10 hardest state brackets in the country. I would say that the Shore Conference championship is a lot harder than that.”

“I think we have a different standard than certain teams because when we lose a game all hell breaks loose,” Carman said. “Coming into this season there were some really big expectations for this team, and I think we fulfilled them.”

Scott Stump is a reporter, newsletter writer and editor who first started covering Shore Conference football in 1999 and has covered basketball, baseball and seemingly every other Shore Conference sport at some point. 

Contact him at [email protected]

 

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