Seniors take their last shots; Carey leads teammates in scoring in both games
By DAVID NAHAN/Sentinel staff
OCEAN CITY – After two weeks of no games because of COVID-19 cancellations, the Ocean City High School girls basketball team wrapped up its shortened season Friday and Saturday, beating Atlantic County Institute of Technology and Egg Harbor Township.
That gives the girls a winning record of 6-5 on the pandemic-shortened season that eliminated playoffs and tournaments. More than that, the girls finished looking like Red Raiders – teams that play every minute of every game, dive for loose balls and contest every rebound.
The girls beat ACIT 49-16 on Friday and topped EHT 57-27 Saturday.
Coach Paul Baruffi said he was proud of the play of his three seniors, Marlee Brestle, Joni Dice and Stephanie Carey. He assigned Dice and Carey to ACIT’s main scoring threat, Grace Speer, limiting her to 8 points.
Carey was the high scorer in her penultimate high school game with 12 points and Brestle contributed 9. Dice added 3 more for the senior class.
Marin Panico and Avery Jackson had 8 apiece, Frankie Ritzel scored 6 (both 3-pointers), Tori Vliet had 2 and A’yanna Morton had 1.
This was not a game that was ever in doubt.
Ocean City jumped out to a 10-0 lead and it took almost 5 minutes before ACIT scored. The Red Raiders outscored their opponents 8-4 in the second quarter for a 22-8 halftime lead. They controlled the entire game with some stifling defense. ACIT’s best quarter was the third, when the girls scored 5 points. They only managed 3 in the final stanza. At the same time, Ocean City put up 12 and 15 for the 33-point final margin.
“We were off for two weeks,” Baruffi said after Friday’s game. “We haven’t played since the 17th. We had a pretty good practice yesterday for being off as long as we were. We showed some energy and I thought we showed it here tonight too.”
“I’m happy with their effort. I think we’ve had that effort all year, we just have trouble putting the ball in sometimes,” he said. “In the second half … we started making some shots. We were a whole different team.”
Baruffi said it has been an odd season, which didn’t begin until the end of January – rather than late December – and ended March 6.
“The whole thing has been strange. I think ev erybody would tell you the same thing. You don’t know what to expect day to day, that’s the main thing. Every day is a different adventure, whether you’re going to be told if you’re playing or not playing or you can have practice or you can’t have practice, that kind of stuff.”
The coach sees potential in the girls who are going to be returning next year.
“Most of the girls you see out there will be coming back,” he said. “I thought the seniors played really hard tonight. You could tell their high school career is coming to an end. It’s been tough on them. I feel sorry for anybody who had to go through this as a junior or senior last year. The light at the end of the tunnel is starting to show, but they’ve shown a lot of perseverance.
“I thought the three seniors gave a really good effort tonight,” Baruffi said. “I put Joni and Stephanie on 25 (Speer), she is a good player for them. I think they both did a really good job covering her.”
Ocean City 57
EHT 27
Against EHT, Carey led all scorers with 13 points in her final game as a Red Raider and fellow senior Brestle closed out her career with 10. Senior Dice added 2.
Panico scored 12, Jackson had 7, Vliet had 6, Maddy Monteleone scored 3 and Morton and Ritzel had 2 each.
Lauren Baxter and Yani Davis led EHT with 10 and 8, respectively.
Mainland girls finish at 12-2
The Mainland Regional High School girls lost two of their first six game … and none after that, finishing their own shortened season with a 12-2 record, the only losses to Middle Township (8-1) and Wildwood Catholic (9-1). Middle Township was the only team undefeated in the Cape-Atlantic League and in the East Division, falling to Haddonfield in an out-of-conference game.
Mainland was rarely challenged in its last eight games, more than doubling their opponent’s score in all but one of the games.
The Mustangs had a number of seniors on the team, but only one key starter – Lila Schoen.
Schoen wasn’t the high scorer for her team, but she was the floor general, setting up the plays.
