WILDWOOD — On Saturday afternoon, the Ocean City High School girls basketball team had the spark, using the fourth quarter to come from behind to beat Central Bucks South (Pa.) 38-36.
On Sunday morning, that spark was gone.
It didn’t help that the Red Raiders were facing a hot-shooting Mount Saint Joseph team that forced consistent turnovers throughout, got off to a 19-2 advantage and finished the first quarter up 23-6.
The girls left the weekend at the Boardwalk Basketball Classic in the Wildwoods Convention Center with the win over Central Bucks South and a lopsided 69-37 loss to the Mount.
“Yesterday we played hard from beginning to end. Today from the tip we were terrible. There was just no energy in the gym,” head coach Trish Henry said after Sunday’s game. “The bench did a nice job, but the starters, they just weren’t into it, you know what I mean?”
Henry acknowledged the skills on the Mount’s part.
“They’re just a very talented team with a lot of basketball players, so they are very good,” she said.
“I don’t know if the energy yesterday was because we usually don’t win close games and maybe that took some of the life out of them,” Henry said about the change from Saturday to Sunday.
“I’m not really sure, but we had multiple starters not score. You can’t have a successful program if your starters aren’t scoring,” she said.
Henry made repeated lineup changes, at times swapping out the entire lineup on the floor.
“I was looking for somebody to score. We weren’t scoring, we weren’t shooting. I don’t understand that,” she said. “They were a good defense, but we had plenty of shots and we just turned the ball over. We just didn’t pass the ball. I don’t know what happened.”
Asked what she planned to regroup, Henry said, “We just focus on tomorrow. We’ve got to get back in the gym practicing, just get some more energy back.
“If we have energy, we can compete, but today we were a disaster out there.”
Against Central Bucks South, Marley Ostrander was the leading scorer with 15 points. Teammate Gabby Henry had 11. Allie Hudson chipped in five, Kaia Chew had a three-point basket and Cecelia Mirsky and Scarlett Fletcher had two points each.
The Red Raiders trailed 20-15 at halftime, but narrowed that gap to three points, 31-28, by the end of the third quarter. Ocean City outscored Central Bucks South 10-5 in the fourth quarter with five of those points coming from Ostrander, a trey from Henry and two-pointer from Fletcher.
Against the Mount, the Red Raiders were down 33-10 at the half and had their most production in the third, being outscored 21-16.
No Ocean City player made it to double digits.
Mya Dever led the team with 9 points — two three-pointers and three free throws, all in the fourth quarter. Ostrander produced all of her eight points in the third quarter and Casey Adamson hit two treys in the third quarter. Mirsky also had six, Hudson 4 and Madison McHale and Fletcher two each.
Ocean City is now 3-2. The girls were taking on Hatboro-Horsham on Tuesday after the Sentinel went to press. The girls are home next at 5:30 p.m. Tuesday, Jan. 6.
– STORY and PHOTOS by DAVID NAHAN/Sentinel staff
