Saint Rose Overcomes Sluggish Start To Capture Non-Public A Championship By Mike Ready

TOMS RIVER – With winter still upon us, St. Rose must’ve been feeling the chill because they came out cold as ice in the first quarter of last Saturday’s NJSIAA Non-Public A final against Immaculate Heart.  

The Purple Roses (28-3) shot a miserable 2-of-11 (18.2 %) from the field in the first quarter before shaking off their slow start. They then methodically pulled away from the Lions to clinch their first state title since 2015 and first Non-Public A since 2012, with a 53-38 victory over 20th-ranked Immaculate Heart at the RWJ Barnabas Health Arena in Toms River.

The win was St. Rose’s eighth state title overall and sends them to the Tournament of Champions for the first time in three years.

Senior Lovin Marsicano’s three-pointer pulled St. Rose – ranked second in the state – to within one point, 8-7, with 1:28 left in the quarter, but the Purple Roses missed three 3-point attempts in the final minute after forcing two turnovers and trailed by one going into the second quarter. 

St. Rose began to find their range and shots began to fall with a little more frequency in the second quarter when they shot 46.1 percent while shooting 6-for-13 from the field. 

They used a 9-2 run in the final 4:36 of the second quarter to take a 22-15 lead as Marsicano again ended the quarter with a key trey to push their lead to seven at the intermission. 

St. Rose’s leading scorer, Lucy Thomas, was limited to two points in the first half while their second-leading scorer and floor general, Mikayla Markham, was held scoreless. Markham missed her first four shot attempts including three three’s and may have been a little gun shy as she failed to take another shot the final 5:32 of the half. 

“We just weren’t hitting shots,” said St. Rose assistant coach Raheem Carter of  his team’s poor shooting in the first half. “We couldn’t have shot any worse and we were up by seven. Eventually our shots are going to fall. We work hard too on shooting, but we had to get Lucy established. She was 1-for-4 going into halftime, so we had to get her more touches. She opens everything up for us; she’s a handful.”

With Thomas and Markham struggling in the first half, junior Sam Mikos and senior Ariana Dalia picked up the slack scoring seven points apiece with both hitting for five points in the decisive second quarter. 

“Every game, it can be someone different,” Carter said of his team’s depth. “That’s how we prepare. I’ve said it before, we have all-staters going against all-staters and you can’t help but get better. Sam and Ari were huge in the first half with Sam’s ability to get inside and Ari’s ability to move the ball. We just wanted to be aggressive. We didn’t want to jacking up a lot of three’s, we wanted to start gapping and get the ball inside more in the second half.”

At the start of the second half, St. Rose went directly to Thomas inside and she was fouled driving the lane. She converted one of two free throws before adding another two field goals in the quarter for five third-quarter points. 

“We weren’t really knocking down shots too well, but after halftime we knew we had to pick it up,” said Thomas. “We were ready for this game; this was our game so we picked up our intensity, made plays and started knocking down shots.”

St. Rose definitely picked it up shooting 77.7 percent in the third quarter hitting 7-of-9 shots from the field including two three’s from junior sharp-shooter Lauren Lithgow, who has been a big-time weapon from three-point land for St. Rose in the playoffs. 

Thomas and Lithgow combined for 11 of St. Rose’s 15 third-quarter points helping them boost their lead to 14 points, 37-23 heading into the fourth quarter. 

Carter decided to go to a pressure man-to-man defense in the second half to take advantage of loss of point guard that completely stifled the Immaculate Heart offense forcing the Lions into 1-for-7 shooting from the field in the third quarter and 3-for-7 in the fourth quarter for a painful 28.6 percent.  

“We wanted to speed them up especially with them down to one primary ball handler,” said Carter about the switch. “We wanted to send our defense up floor and try to force turnovers.”

Coming into the game Carter knew one of the keys would be to limit the damage done by Immaculate Heart’s 6-foot-3 sophomore center Anna Morris, who can dominate a game from the paint with her size and strength.

Carter countered with the 5-foot-10 Mikos, who frustrated Morris, limiting her nine total points in the game. 

“Sam was fantastic fronting the post and using her length,” Cater said. “We thought Sam would be a much better matchup with her physicality and length and she made it very difficult for her (Morris) at every point. When Sam got tired we threw Lucy on her, then we threw Lovin on her so we had different players that we threw at her. She’s (Morris) a big, tough player in the post.”

Dalia’s bucket off a feed from Thomas to start the fourth quarter pushed the St. Rose lead to 16 points, 39-23, and Lithgow’s third trey of the game gave St. Rose its largest lead of the game, 44-26, with just over five minutes left in the game. 

Although Markham had an off-day shooting, she didn’t let that affect the rest of her game as she led the team with six assists along with six rebounds and three steals, while Thomas finished with nine points, seven boards, four assists and five steals. Dalia finished with a team-high 11 points, three rebounds, a steal, blocked shot and an assist. 

“This is what we’ve been looking for since day one,” Dalia said when asked how it felt getting back to the TOC. “On the first day of practice, this is where we wanted to be so this is what we planned for.”