Rutgers Prep junior Mikayla Blakes (#1, middle) is surrounded by her teammates at mid-court after scoring her 1,000th point against Gill St. Bernard’s on January 24, 2023 in Somerset. (Photo: Mike Pavlichko)
It was a big moment, it just wasn’t as dramatic as it could have been.
But that didn’t keep Mikayla Blakes’ teammates from mobbing her on the court, presenting her with balloons and flowers, and celebrating the junior’s 1,000th career point, which came on a free throw less than midway through the first quarter Tuesday afternoon.
It was just the third point of the game for Blakes, who finished with 29 – and five treys – as No. 1 Rutgers Prep sprinted out to a 26-4 lead at the end of one quarter, and beat No. 3 Gill St. Bernards for the 19th straight time since 2015, by the final score of 75-36.
That 39-point lead was the Lady Argonauts’ biggest of the game, mainly because of Prep’s three-point shooting in the second half, as both teams kept their starters in well into the fourth quarter, as they are the best conference teams they will face in the regular season.
Overall in the game, Rutgers Prep (11-3, 9-0 Skyland Delaware) hit 10 times from beyond the arc, with Chloe Escanillas adding three, Katie Ledden hitting a pair from downtown, and Ava LaMonica adding another.
Brooke Baisley led the Knights with 14, and while it bested her season average of 11.4 points per game, she only had four in the first half when the game was really decided. That was more a testament to Prep’s defense than anything, which ran its full-court press the majority of the first half.
Click below for postgame reaction presented by Sportsplex at Metuchen:
