Tams roll in opener
Tamaqua put its fun, run and gun show on display Friday in the opening round of its Tip-Off tournament and, in the process, served notice it will be around for the long-haul this season.
A year older, a year wiser and surely more seasoned, the Raiders dominated just about everywhere on the floor and buried East Stroudsburg South, 61-28.
Tamaqua, which has four sophomores in its starting lineup, will face Catasauqua in the title game today at 1:30. Catty defeated Lincoln Leadership 48-36 in the opener.
“Our goal was to keep them under 30 points,” Tamaqua coach Erika Davis said of the game plan. “We need to play defense to create (offense) off the transition and overall we did about everything the right way.”
The only spur in the action came at the onset as the Cavaliers jumped out to an early 8-3 lead. But the Raiders answered with a 14-2 run and were never headed.
Emma Kuczynski and Emily Titus, who led Tamaqua with 16 and 15 points respectively, sent the tone during the Raiders’ early run. Titus drained seven points in the first eight minutes and Kuczynski added four. Kirstin Jones added four of her game-high 12 rebounds during the spurt.
“(Kirstin) makes it work,” Davis said, “She gets us going.”
Turnovers started to multiply for East Stroudsburg South as they lost the ball 13 times in the opening half as Tamaqua built a 29-14 lead at the break.
“Our defense is designed to pressure outside, get help and force turnovers,” Davis said. “We switched up between man and zone. That creates a lot of our offense in transition.
“I’m happy with the overall start. This was a good team effort.
Tamaqua’s transition game was on full display during an eight-point flurry in the second quarter that broke the game open.
Jen Fredrickson started the run with a foul line extended jumper, Jamie Zuber followed with a breakaway layup, Kuczynski added another fastbreak bucket, before Zuber got inside for two more points and a 28-10 lead.
“We have the athletes to do that,” said Davis of the breakaway buckets. “We’ve just got to make the right decisions. If we don’t have numbers we want to pull it out and set the offense, and then look to execute in our half court sets.”
CAPPING IT OFF … The Blue Raiders can make it two tournament wins in two seasons if they get by Catty.
A BEAST … Davis called Jones “a beast on the boards.” Jones came into the season with 627 rebounds and with a full season ahead can hit the 1000 plateau.
UNSUNG … There is plenty of scoring support for the Kuczynski/Titus tandem as sophomore Frederickson tallied eight points. Jones added seven points, and Zuber was a force defensively. Rebekah Hromyak added five points and provided quality minutes as well.
EAST STROUDSBURG SOUTH
Cole 4-1-4-9, Williams 3-0-0-6, Davy 3-0-2-6, Anderson 2-1-3-5, Oliver 1-0-0-2, Webster 0-0-0-0, Robinson 0-0-0-0, Parkins 0-0-0-0, Bostic 0-0-0-0, Albert 0-0-4-0. TOTALS: 13-2-13-28.
TAMAQUA
Kuczynski 7-1-4 16, Titus 7-1-2-15, Fredrickson 4-0-0-8, Jones 3-1-2-7, Hromyak 2-0-0-5, Reinhardt 1-2-2-4, Zuber 2-0-0-4, Fredrick 1-0-0-2, Boyle 0-0-0-0, Kane 0-0-0-0. TOTALS: 26-7-12-61.
ES South 10 4 8 6 – 28
Tamaqua 17 12 17 15 – 61
Three-pointers: Tamaqua - Kuczynski 1, Hromyak 1.
