Power and Walker key huge Albertus comeback at Slam Dunk
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- December
- 28
There’s an early favorite for Game of the Year.
This morning at the County Center two amazing teams took the floor. Greece-Athena is the four-time defending Section 5 Class AA champion. Albertus Magnus is, well, you don’t need me to tell you about them or Alaina Walker. Neither team had a loss.
They battled back and forth for a half, trading baskets and leads. Greece-Athena completely took over in the third quarter, going up by as many as 17. The Trojans ran their offense to perfection while Albertus was missing everything. A spectacular first half had given way to a stinker at one end. Entering the fourth quarter the lead was 14.
Would you believe Albertus won the game? Somehow, against an exceptionally-talented and exceptionally-coached opponent, the Falcons stormed back for a 62-58 triumph. It was a win these players will remember for a long time. I know I’ll be talking about it for a while. I find it hard to be impressed by a team as great as Albertus because there’s not much they can do that I haven’t seen out of them. Today, in the first round of the Slam Dunk tournament, I was impressed.
The comeback belonged to two players — Walker and guard Maura Power (pictured right, although not from today). They combined for Albertus’s first 25 points of the fourth quarter. Both girls outscored Greece-Athena by themselves in the fourth — a quarter the Falcons dominated 28-10.
After Power sunk a couple of 3s, Trojans coach Mike Butler yelled to his girls to come out on the shooter.
Last year he would have been more right than he knew. Power has been mostly a 3-point specialist during her varsity career. Not this year. She said in preseason she was making a concerted effort to drive more so she wouldn’t be as easy to defend. She heard Butler’s command and anticipated the defender would be in her face. When the defender got close she drove baseline and converted a smooth layup that I don’t think she ever would have taken in previous years. Her aggressiveness also earned her three trips to the line in the quarter.
The go-ahead basket was Walker’s tremendous acrobatic stick-back with her back practically to the basket. That happened with 2:05 left and put them up 56-55. It was a mind-boggling event considering how much the game had gotten away from them in the third. Coach Joe McGuinness must have called four timeouts in an effort to stop the bleeding. Nothing worked. Until something just clicked in that fourth quarter.
Walker led all scorers with 22. Power had 13, all in the final quarter. Felicia DaCruz also had 13.
Big guard Sarah Alwardt scored 21 for Greece-Athena. Freshman Nicole Bini added 16.
Between the comeback, the nip-and-tuck first half, the talent level on the court, and the discipline on both ends that was clearly a product of coaching, I don’t anticipate watching a better game this season. All it was missing was a winning shot at the buzzer. It’s hard to overstate how smart both of these teams were. Combined, they forced maybe three poor shots. The defensive sets were superb. Hat’s off to both.
This entry was posted
on Sunday, December 28th, 2008 at 2:21 pm by Jake Thomases. 
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Josh Thomson has done some of everything since joining The Journal News in March 2003. He began working for the Gannett weeklies during the winter of 2002 as a freelance writer. He joined the daily staff soon after and has since covered various high school and pro sports. Away from sportswriting, Josh lives in Westchester and spends his free time either with his fiancee, Sarah, or expertly managing his various championship-winning fantasy sports teams. He's visited 21 major-league baseball stadiums and insists that Fenway Park and Wrigley Field are the best by far. Josh graduated from Carmel High School in 1998, then went to Boston University, where, in 2002, he received a degree in communications with a minor in history.
is magnus playing lourdes tomorrow? what time?
It was a great game….Walker had some very athletic shots….Magnus did not show their intensity until the 4th quarter….they were also helped by not missing many shots in that 4th qtr…..Greece Athena was very impressive..they were very deep on the bench….they should have buried AM in the 4th qtr…but..they didn’t….nice win for AM
Anybody know the score of the Lourdes-Cornwall game?
Lourdes 58 – Cornwall 45
Lourdes vs. Magnus tomorrow? Time?
It’s 3:30 or 3:45.
Cornwall Vs GA 1:45
Agreed was very impressed with GA…super deep…Cornwall or any team is going to have to be on to compete
Championship’s at 3:30 tomorrow. Should be another great one. Between G-A, Lourdes, and Briarcliff, Albertus is staring at a rough stretch of games between now and Jan. 6.
Hi Jake,
Is there a way to view standings by league only, as we were able to do in past years from the VC home page? The new names and numbers option does not list by league, it lists everyone by record. There are too many schools and I don’t know what their league affiliations are to make any sense of the information. I like to see who is doing what within the league standings, please advise.
Also, is Journal News/VC no longer using Maxpreps? Thanks.
I feel your pain. It’s very frustrating to see a list of 80 teams without any league breakdown. Unfortunately, as of now, there are no other options.
Gannett (our parent company) is using the High School Sports Net website instead of MaxPreps. As you and many others have noticed, there are a lot of kinks left to work out. One of them is the standings. We’ve been told that improvements are under way.
The best I can offer is to lay out the league breakdown in a blog post. You can then use that alongside the standings to determine who is doing well in each league.
Jake, Stefanine Dolson from Minisink Valley verbals to UCONN
Encourage your coaches to get their scores and stats to Maxpreps. Just because JN chose this substandard service does not mean we, the customers, need to stand by and accept this major ‘downgrade’. The kids are not being served and while we are being asked to sit on our hands….these years in their athletic lives are not going to be repeated.
Maxpreps has standings and all relevant stats. It is owned and supported by a large firm and has all the tools NOW. Why do we need to wait??? Simply put, we do not.
Any scores from today?
Greece Athena beat Cornwall by about 6. They lead most of the way by 8 to 10 points. At one point they were up by as much as 13. Greece is very balanced team with nice size at the guards. Cornwall did well with not a lot of height. Cleary on Cornwall is a heck of a player. Nice job by both teams.