March 16, 2005

A great year for CAL basketball

By TOM WILLIAMS
Sports Columnist


Only once before have three Cape-Atlantic League basketball teams won state championships in the same year.

That year was 1981 when Atlantic City won its first girls state title under Joe Fussner, Pleasantville’s Steve Ottenberg won a second straight with his girls team and Scott Beeten coached Mainland to its only state title in boys basketball.

Two dozen years later, the CAL has done it again. And this trio of champions has stories every bit as interesting as those 1981 teams.

For example, Atlantic City had never before won a state boys basketball title. From Sam Sawyer and Gene Hudgins, through Willie Glass, Lou Roe, Walt Montford and Tory Cavalieri, the Vikings had been shut out. This program that has produced 14 American Conference champions in the last 15 years and 31 in the last 35 years will finally get to hang a state championship banner.

For years, ACHS has had the unfair advantage of hosting both the South Jersey Group 4 championship game and the state semifinal. But they failed to take advantage of the opportunity, losing home games to the likes of Shawnee, Lenape, Highland and Rancocas Valley. This year they did take advantage and they did it against Shawnee, their greatest nemesis, aside from Camden.

The only thing that would have filled the season with even more opportunities would have been for Camden to have won the Group 3 title and the seeding committee do its job correctly. That would have matched the Vikings with Camden in the Tournament Of Champions.

But, Camden is gone and Gene Allen’s Vikings will go after even more on Thursday when they play in the TOC for the very first time.

As big a story as Atlantic City’s state title has become, Absegami’s accomplishment is just as remarkable. Greg Goodwin’s team won the state championship in rebuilding year!

Gami lost an all star lineup to graduation – Kara Ayers, Basimah Thompson, Shantae Barnes and Lindsay McCarthy all graduated. And Erin Hardiman, one of last year’s key subs, decided not to play after suffering a knee injury and accepting a soccer scholarship from Villanova.

This is a young Absegami team, starting just one senior. Though that senior, point guard Danielle Parks, has been a big part of the success and will be missed, this team figures to be better next year. Keep in mind that many of the big plays in the final minutes of Sunday’s win over Montclair were made by two freshmen – Tara Booker and Sara Mostafa.

Gami was accurately seeded No. 1 for the TOC and will get a bye until Friday. Should these Braves add two more wins to their already impressive record (they have already beaten three of the other five teams in the TOC) it would be one of the most remarkable rebuilding years in New Jersey basketball history.

Finally, there is Sacred Heart, a team that seemed to be swirling down the drain when it lost to Eastern in mid-January. The Lions shot 50 percent from the floor on Saturday, including eight three-pointers, and buried defending state champion Morris Catholic, which had defeated Sacred Heart by 13 in January.

Sacred Heart also defeated Holy Spirit in the South Jersey final, a team that had beaten them during the regular season and won the conference in which they both compete.

The Atlantic City boys, Absegami girls and Sacred Heart girls have made CAL history. And each has done it in a unique, and remarkable, way.



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