LINWOOD – The Mainland Regional girls basketball team dominated all facets of the game in a 54-30 home win over Vineland Wednesday, Jan. 11. The Mustangs followed that up with a 53-31 victory over Our Lady of Mercy Academy two days later to improve to 11-2 on the season.
As has been their recipe for success, the Mustangs let stifling defense turn into easy offense against Vineland and before the first quarter was over there was little in doubt.
“They’re a tough team,” junior Sydney Stokes said, “but we were able to take the lead and just push it.”
Mainland opened the game with a 22-4 run.
“I think we did really well defensively early on,” head coach Scott Betson said. “We rebounded well then just got out and ran really effectively. That gave us some easy points.”
The Mustangs made it look easy, but that’s all because of their preparation.
“We were prepared, we scouted them,” Stokes said. “Then we just came out strong, focused on running the ball, doing our offense like we’ve been practicing. We knew this game we’d be able to do that. It all helped with our lead. We just pushed the ball.”
The great start let everyone breathe easy and play loose from there.
“You don’t want one of those games that you have sometimes where you come out and miss a few, then all of a sudden you’re down 6 or 8 points,” Betson said. “Being able to get to the rim quickly and early just kind of eases everything up.”
Mainland led 29-6 at halftime.
Stokes was locked in down low, grabbing rebounds and swatting at least six shots, a couple of them closing out on jump shooters.
“I was definitely feeling it,” Stokes said with a smile. “I usually don’t have that many blocks but tonight I had one of my career high nights.”
“She was great,” Betson said. “She was great on both ends. I kept looking at the score book because it felt like she was dominating the game. But particularly on defense, the way she was blocking shots, rebounding the ball, starting the break for us.”
Stokes is in a fun position for a post player with all the skilled guards on her team.
“They’re really good at getting me the ball,” she said, “and I really appreciate that they push me to my best. It’s great playing with such a talented team.”
“Syd is coming along,” Betson said. “She’s come a long way from a bench player, to kind of a rotational player last year, to a full-time starting varsity player. She very rarely comes out because that’s how important she is to us.”
Mainland has only lost twice so far this season – to Middle Township and Shawnee.
“After our two losses we knew we had to come out and bring our best,” Stokes said. “We did that tonight and we’re hoping to keep that up.”
The Mustangs had the luxury of being able to give the whole fourth quarter to their bench players.
“I thought they competed hard,” Betson said. “They had to execute against the press, which we weren’t expecting. They did some good things in the half-court against zone and man. I was really happy with how they ran some of the offense late in the game.”
Kasey Bretones led all scorers with 17 points.
Ava Mazur added 10, Stokes 9, Bella Mazur 7, Ava Sheeran 4, Maddie Meade 3, Alexa Levy and Savannah Jones 2 each.
As the favorite coming in, Mainland just looked to play their game well.
“You just want to be playing well, you just want to execute your stuff,” Betson said. “We tried some new stuff tonight just to see how it looked, and I thought we executed well.”
Despite the big win and shiny win-loss record, Betson knows his team has plenty of work to do.
“We’ve been up and down,” Betson said. “We don’t really go by outcomes of games, just by the way we’ve been playing. We’ve been up and down early on. I don’t want to jinx it, but we’re starting to get healthy which is a big confidence boost. They’re feeling good but they know that with who we are and what we put on the court, we have to keep working hard to meet the goals we set.”
Against OLMA Friday evening, the first half was tight with the Mainland girls leading 22-17, but they broke it open in the third quarter with a 16-8 advantage and then piled on, 15-6, in the fourth quarter for the 53-31 victory.
Ava Mazur led with 16 points, twin sister Bella had 15, Stokes had 11, Bretones 8 and Sheeran 3.
The Mustangs will look to take another step towards its goals when they host Absegami at 5:30 p.m. Thursday.
Photos by DAVID NAHAN, story by KYLE McCRANE/Sentinel Sports
