Girls Basketball – Red Bank Catholic Dominates Pope John to Claim Ninth State Championship

PISCATAWAY -- The "blood, sweat and tears" cliché does not always apply literally to a team, but it applies very literally to the price the Red Bank Catholic girls basketball team paid to reach the NJSIAA Non-Public A championship game Friday afternoon at Jersey Mike's Arena.

In Friday's championship game against Pope John, RBC hardly needed to break a sweat.

Bolstered by a huge first-half run, the Caseys overwhelmed Pope John, 80-23, to claim ther ninth NJSIAA state title in program history and first since the 2016-17 season.

The victory closes out a season that included a pair of crushing losses that knocked RBC out of the running for the No. 1 ranking in the state, as well as the Shore Conference Tournament, but the Caseys remained undeterred in their pursuit of their first state title in seven years.

"It meant a lot (to win the state championship)," Red Bank Catholic coach Joe Montano said. "It validated what they have done all season long. Those stumbles, against Morris Catholic and against Manasquan, those just made us better and this is why these kids are a great group of kids. They looked at the film, they didn’t point the finger; they said we have got to be better as a group and went back to work."

The postseason run included a showdown vs. Shore Conference Tournament champion St. John Vianney in the South Jersey Non-Public A semifinal, which RBC pulled out, 59-51, on its home floor.

In that win, it was sophomore Addy Nyemchek who sacrificed her blood for the cause. She collided with 6-foot-4 Lancers center Taylor Sofilkanich, who suffered a chipped front tooth, which left a cut on the right side of Nyemchek's forehead that caused a significant amount of blood to run out of the wound and would require 11 stitches.

"I was honestly in shock," Nyemchek said. "The picture of me almost didn’t even look real. It’s funny now that I see it. It didn’t really hurt, I was just in shock. It was a lot of blood. The photo really captures it all."

“She took it like a champ," fellow sophomore Katie Liggio said. "She could have sat down and not played, but she put the headband and played hard for us."

Nyemchek spared herself the blood-loss Friday, but instead left her fingerprints all over the Non-Public A final. The 5-11 wing posted 15 points, 11 rebounds, six assists and three steals in the win.

Since that blue-collar win over SJV, Red Bank Catholic has dominated the competition, limiting each of its final two opponents to under 30 points and a combined 49, beginning with Monday's 44-26 win over Paul VI in the South Non-Public A final.

"We have been trying to be the best defensive team in the state," Liggio said. "With all of the practices and all of the game-planning we did, it was almost impossible not to be a good defensive team."

The defense again dominated on Friday, but the offense also stood out after a slow start to the game. RBC led, 7-6, past the three-minute mark of the first quarter, at which point the Caseys went on a game-breaking, 26-0, run that spanned 7:59 of the game clock between the first and second quarters.

Katie Liggio hit three of her six three-pointers during the 26-0 run on the way to finishing with a game-high 20 points. Liggio also grabbed seven rebounds and finished a near-perfect 7-for-8 from the field and 6-for-7 from three-point range.

"Once I hit two or three, I just keep putting them up," Liggio said. "Sometimes (in a big gym like this) it’s weird with the lights and the sightlines, but I was fine today. I was actually shocked with myself."

"She’s our shooter and what’s great about us is that we know she was hot and to find her as much as we could," Nyemcheck said. "And with Tessa Carman – Katie rarely missed, but if she did, Tessa Carman was probably going to get the rebound. So we all have each other’s backs and making sure we’re finding Katie."

Carman -- RBC's junior center -- did not drive the scoring spree, but she dominated the paint with 15 rebounds and also handed out five assists to go with her two points.

"Tessa did a heck of a job on the boards," Montano said. "That was our Achilles heel in the middle of the year and she really goes after it."

Sophomore Daniela Maletsky provided a spark off the bench with five of her 10 points coming in the final three minutes of the first, which sent the Caseys to the second quarter with a 15-6 lead. Maletsky scored her 10 points in 11 minutes and also plucked four rebounds.

Maletsky hit the first of five RBC three-pointers during the 26-0 run, with sophomore Tessa Liggio also knocking down a pair of threes during the run. Tessa Liggio finished with eight points, five assists and four steals, while RBC shot 11-for-25 (44 percent) from three-point range as a team.

Maletsky led the Caseys bench brigade, which accounted for 29 of the 80 points. Sophomores Lola Giordano and Sophie Smith each added eight points to contribute to that effort.

"It’s one of our advantages, because I don’t think a lot of teams have that," Katie Liggio said of RBC's bench. "So when our bench comes in, I think it just keeps our intensity going while other teams get tired. With other teams, when their bench comes in, their play goes down."

"Our team is really hard to scout because we’re constantly subbing fresh legs," Nyemchek said. "We weren’t tired, but we were probably a little nervous at the beginning. Them coming in helped us loosen up and it gave us fresh legs, which was really important for us."

RBC pumped its lead to 45-10 by halftime and kept adding to it through the final buzzer.

Pope John also has a pair of standout sophomores in Mia Washington and Addison Platt, both of whom finished the season averaging better than 14 points per game. On Friday, though, RBC held Platt to five points and Washington to four on zero made field goals.

"I don’t think you ever imagine that kind of win, but did I know we were capable of playing this way? Yeah I did." Montano said. "It all starts with our defense. They have two outstanding players that can match any team in the state and we did a great job of making them work. When you go eight deep and you’re bringing in three kids like Lola, Dani and Sophie, it really helps."

The Caseys sophomores starred on Friday, with Carman and fellow junior Christina Liggio (six points, three assists, five steals) playing prominent roles as well. Ella Inacio -- who added a point off the bench on Friday -- is the only senior on this year's roster, which means the Caseys are likely to be the favorites to win Non-Public A for at least one more year.

RBC's goals are greater than the state title going forward, especially after coming so close to both the No. 1 ranking in the state and a trip to the Shore Conference Tournament final this season. The Caseys lost a down-to-the-wire game against Morris Catholic -- the No. 1 team in New Jersey heading into the state finals -- by a 49-46 score and later dropped another competitive game to No. 2 Rutgers Prep.

"Our goal was to play the hardest schedule we could play," Montano said. "Take our kids and put them in really putting them in hard situations. Our scheduled showed that: playing Morris Catholic, playing Long Island Lutheran, playing Westtown. These are top teams in the country and we were hoping by this time of the year it would help us."

In the Shore Conference Tournament, RBC lost a 59-56 heartbreaker to Manasquan in the semifinal round, which will leave RBC searching for its first SCT title since 2013 heading into next season.

"We’re definitely disappointed that we lost those games, but we put them in the past and learned from them," Nyemchek said. "We watched the film and practiced the things that hurt us in those games. It gave us the momentum and energy to get better and win this tournament."

While those shortcomings were disappointing for a young RBC that had no intention of waiting around to win championships, those battle scars -- both literal and figurative -- prepared the Caseys for their state-title run.

"Coach Ping (assitant Joe Pingitore) says it best: ‘What are we waiting for?’ In the moment, we just want to win and we want to keep winning. It’s exciting that we have next year and a lot of us have two more years, but we’re always in the moment.

"Now, I’m super excited for next year. Hopefully we get here again and win it."