St. John Vianney used a dominant first quarter as a springboard to victory on Tuesday night in a Shore Conference A North Division showdown against Manasquan.
Manasquan, ranked No. 8 in the NJ.com Top 20, was never able to recover as No. 2 St. John Vianney won its fourth-straight game with a 71-45 victory.
“I think starting strong is super big for our team,” St. John Vianney’s Stella Lockhart said. “If we come out strong then it’s really hard to stop us.”
For Manasquan, the reigning Group 2 champion, it was the first loss of the season after starting 11-0.
“We had pretty high expectations, they’re a good team, their coach (Lisa Kukoda) is really good,” St. John Vianney’s Taylor Sofilkanich said. “We just wanted to come out and play super hard, they’re a very cut-team first, so we just knew we had to stop that and bump them. I think we played really well and really focused on our defense today.”
The Lancers opened on an 8-0 run as Manasquan didn’t score its first basket until there was 5:20 remaining in the first quarter. From there, the Lancers outscored the Warriors 10-5 in the final 3:28 and led 18-7 after one.
Manasquan tried to gain some ground in the second quarter and cut the Lancers’ lead to 25-13 on a basket from Calista Vowteras with 5:54 left in the half, but St. John Vianney outscored the Warriors 17-10 in the final 5:35 and led 42-23 at the half.
“Just moving the ball, I feel like we played very selfless today,” Sofilkanich said of the offense. “We moved the ball really well and just hitting the in-out passes and our shooters were really good today.”
In the third quarter, Manasquan outscored St. John Vianney 16-12 as the Lancers led 54-39, but the Warriors only scored six points in the fourth for the 71-45 final.
“Defensively we did a really good job bumping, that was our main focus today because like I said before they cut really hard,” Sofilkanich said. “So we did a good job bumping and just knowing where the shooters were.”
“They’re a team that has a lot of tradition, has always been pretty good. We wanted to focus on our defense and I think we executed the scout pretty well,” Lockhart added. “We were also focused on matching up in the press and making sure we knew where our players were and having a lot of ball pressure.”
For Manasquan, which had nine different players contribute offensively, Shannon Looney led with 11 points and added two rebounds. Jordyn Hollawell finished with seven points and four rebounds, while Vowteras added six points and two rebounds.
Sofilkanich led St. John Vianney, which also had nine different players score, with a game-high 14 points and added three rebounds. Gianna Sano posted 12 points and three rebounds while Antonia Jackson contributed 11 points and two rebounds. Lockhart chipped in 10 points and four rebounds.
St. John Vianney, which is ranked nationally at No. 22 by ESPN, has a tough stretch of games coming up against St. Rose, Ontario Christian (CA) – ranked No. 1 in the country – No. 3 Gloucester Catholic and Red Bank Regional before another showdown against No. 1 Red Bank Catholic next Thursday.
“It feels really good, we have a lot of games this week and going into a big game it’s great to have a win under our belt,” Lockhart said. “I think playing in the conference that we do and having a lot of good teams helps us prepare, we get to work on a lot of the stuff that we need to do. We also try to work on having the memory of a goldfish and move on.”
