By Andy Loigu

In the best start for a local team this writer can remember since Hackettstown baseball’s 15-0 start in 2011, the Warren Hills girls basketball team is 9-0 as January goes into its second week.

By the way, that Hackettstown baseball team reached the sectional final and produced several good college players.

Win number nine for the Warren Hills girls team came at Pingry on Saturday by a 61-17 score. Heather Laffan and Nicole Mallard each scored 12 as the Blue Streaks emulsified the Big Blue.

Win number eight came by a notable 52-29 margin over a North Hunterdon program which has been the Blue Streaks’ nemesis for decades. Blue Streaks’ head coach Meghan McGeehan played for the North Hunterdon Lions as a high school student and made it her mission to establish the same high standards and consistency of performance at Warren Hills.

Mallard led the Streaks with 17 points against North.

Hills Are Spartan Champions

Warren Hills won the championship of the Spartan Holiday Classic on Dec. 29 with a 41-31 victory in the final, over the rugged High Point Wildcats. Their intense defense held High Point to a mere 11 points in the first half. Mallard scored 17 points and grabbed seven rebounds, while Advika Thandoni pulled down a game-high 15 boards while scoring seven points. Laffan scored nine points in a balanced offense.

Laffan, a junior guard, scored 14 points in a 51-20 win over the Falcons of Jefferson Township (regarded as one of Morris County’s better programs) on Dec. 28.

Also establishing herself as a prime time player in the area is Belvidere junior Brieann Opdyke, who is averaging 16 points per game. She scored 21 points in a game for the third time this season on Friday in Big Red’s 49-29 win over rival North Warren.

The best high school coaches set high goals and get their players to buy in, to overachieve, to believe the goals can be reached by working harder than the other teams. It works. Good habits are established in the early going and they lead to tangible improvements.

Sbriscia Molding Tough, Smart Wrestlers

First-year Warren Hills wrestling head coach David Sbriscia is seeking to make his team a group of athletes who are both tough and smart.

After a 49-12 loss to perennial power and the team everyone measures themselves by, Phillipsburg, on January 2, he said the Streaks need to emulate the way the Stateliners take the mat with assertiveness and the confidence that comes with knowing what you are doing. Sbriscia won’t ask the Blue Streaks to do anything he didn’t do himself, when he was a Warren Reporter Athlete of the Year nominee in 2006. He wrestled in Atlantic City as a state qualifier that year, overcoming the disadvantage in experience from not taking up wrestling until he was in high school. He also was a standout in football and the classroom (the most important part of being a high school student). He holds a master’s degree in health and wellness from Ithaca College, where he also served as an assistant wrestling coach. During his coaching tenure there, Ithaca placed fourth at the national Division III tournament, with eight national qualifiers, including four All-American performers and a national champion.

He knows what it takes to win.

***Ladies and gentlemen, Elvis has left the building.