Brick girls bounce back with win over Southern

Green Dragons rebound from lopsided loss to Toms River North

BY WAYNE WITKOWSKI

Staff Writer

It seemed like three weeks instead of three games, but the Brick Township girls basketball team finally left its losing streak behind.

The Green Dragons got a big scoring effort from a DeTata, but it wasn’t Kathy, who was the scoring leader in the Shore last season. It was her sophomore sister, Alessandra, who poured in 11 points in a 34-29 victory over Southern last Friday. Kathy DeTata added eight while holding high-scoring Stephanie Longo to two points.

In fact, the Green Dragons’ defense checked Southern to three field goals after the first quarter as both teams are tied for second place in the Shore Conference A South at 3-2. Brick Township is 5-5 overall, midway to the cutoff for the state tournament.

It has a hectic week ahead in that regard with a game Tuesday at 2-10 Brick Memorial, an interdivisional home game Thursday against 6-4 Central Regional, a division road game Saturday against Toms River South (6-3, 2-2), and a home game Monday against Manchester (6-2), which is unbeaten in Class B South.

"It’s a very interesting week for us," said coach Mark Truhan, who feels his team will be ready after playing what he called a "complete" game against 5-3 Southern.

"A lot of the kids looked to us coaches for answers, so we went back to fundamentals, breaking down the offense and defense by position," said Truhan, whose team had come off a 15-point loss to Toms River North, which is unbeaten in the division. "The kids were down and frustrated even though I felt they were ahead of plans with the states and Shore Conference tournaments. We turned a corner with this win. We needed it."

"We knew at halftime that this is it and said, ‘This is the time,’" said Kathy DeTata.

Brick Township trailed 20-14 at halftime.

"My sister stepped up, and that was a key. Those losses set us back, but now we’re back on track. Hopefully we’ll win the next few games, which will pump us up. I think the key was defense. It didn’t seem as good after the first quarter to those losses. And our offense slowed down (last Friday) and got more composed."

Alessandra DeTata fired in eight points in the second-half comeback.

"Defensively, we’re back to more of a man-to-man, but our help side cuts off the passing lanes so it can look more like a 2-3," said Truhan. "And on offense, we know more when to go to the basket. We’re running our offense to a T."