By Andy Loigu

Producing a 9-3 season this year under head coach Ben Barnhart and only losing one senior (Anabeth Fernandez) are signs of good things to come for Hackettstown girls basketball.

The team’s pursuit of a Northwest Jersey Athletic Conference (NJAC) playoff title ended with a 46-38 loss to a Hopatcong team they had beaten earlier in the season. Junior Frankie Cartagena launched four three-pointers from beyond the arc while scoring a team-high 16 points in the loss. She scored 129 points for the season, with a high game of 19.

Sophomore Rylie Grant added 11 points to the Tigers’ total.

The Tigers enjoyed a six-game win streak from Jan. 30 to Feb. 20. The wins came over Sussex Tech (51-17 and 43-27), Vernon (39-23), Morris Tech (53-43), Hopatcong (52-35) and Wallkill Valley (63-54). 

Due to safety concerns regarding the pandemic, no state tournament was held in New Jersey high school basketball this season.

Warren Hills, a supremely successful girls program in recent times, experienced a disappointing 6-8 record for 2020-21.
In the Skyland Conference playoff, an 8-1 Pope John squad defeated the Streaks 55-53 in overtime. Maddie Morgan led the Streaks with 29 points and Meghan Dufner pulled down eight rebounds and swiped two steals.

In boys basketball Hackettstown finished with an 8-6 ledger. In the NJAC playoffs’ consolation round, the Tigers lost 65-47 to the Thundering Herd of Mountain Lakes. Sean Magnotta registered a team-high 15 points for HHS.

The Tigers enjoyed a five-game win streak from Feb. 16 to March 2 this winter, including a 47-46 “payback” at Jefferson, a team which beat them in Hackettstown earlier. So much for home court “advantage.” The Tigers also won 62-54 over High Point, 59-37 at Warren Hills, 49-31 at Lenape Valley and 40-26 against the visiting Cougars of Kittatinny. In the playoff semifinal they lost 55-46 to the Crusaders of Morris Catholic.

The Warren Hills boys finished 3-11, but won their final game of the season 71-34 over a 5-9 Belvidere squad.
Tucker Gabrich scored a game-high 13 points for the Streaks while Jaidan Southwell led Belvy with a dozen. Corey Banghart played a vital role for the Streaks with six rebounds and a lot of larceny, 11 steals. 

Since they were coming off a 53-51 win over the Canucks of North Plainfield in a Skyland Silver Division consolation game, Warren Hills finished with a two-game win streak.

Congratulations and a big thank you are extended to all the coaches and officials who carried out the season safely.
Of all the “major” sports which enjoy big-time status in our United States, basketball is the only one that is truly and uniquely American in its origin.

Back in 1891, Luther Gulick, head of the phys ed department at Springfield College in Massachusetts, asked his football coach, James Naismith, to devise a physically demanding indoor sport to fill the gap between the fall football and spring baseball seasons. Naismith came up with the game of basketball.

The original ball was a soccer ball, which gave way to a larger ball with laces, and in 1941 to the molded ball which is in use today.

Originally, the ball had to be taken out of the peach basket which was used as the goal, after each field goal was scored. Finally, someone came up with the brilliant idea of having a goal made out of a net with a hole cut out of the bottom, and thus basketball became a running game by 1895, when the number of players on the court at one time was set at five for each team. Yale was the first institution to invite other colleges to compete against their team, thus setting the stage for “March Madness” back in 1894.

Basketball was played only by men until Smith College started a women’s intramural program in 1892. Intercollegiate women’s play started a half-century later.

The first team to profit from playing basketball for an audience was a team in Trenton, NJ, in 1895, giving birth to various play for pay leagues which eventually (in 1946) combined to form what we now know as the NBA.

The 10-foot height of the basket from the floor has stood the test of time, ever since it was part of Naismith’s original set of rules for the sport.

Ladies and gentlemen, Elvis has left the building.