The Rutgers Prep girls’ basketball team celebrates with its 2024 Somerset County Tournament trophy. (Photo: Mike Pavlichko)
The Rutgers Prep girls basketball team had beaten Gill St. Bernard’s twice this season, both times by large margins.
But Saturday, in the Somerset County Tournament title game at Montgomery Township High School, it was much closer.
In a game that featured nine ties after 0-0, and 14 lead changes – and saw the Argonauts trailing at halftime for the first time since the 2019 SCT final, a loss to Franklin that remains their most recent defeat to a Skyland Conference opponent – Rutgers Prep ultimately came out on top.
The No. 1 seed Argonauts beat second-seeded Knights 58-55.
Prep was without sophomore Ava LaMonica, who injured her ankle early against Franklin Thursday in the semifinals. It forced head coach Mary Klinger to adjust her rotation.
And early on, Prep wasn’t hitting shots. But they did down the stretch, and that was the difference. That and Gill’s Gandy Malou-Mamel fouling out in the fourth quarter.
Mikayla Blakes led Prep (21-4) with 18 points, eleven after halftime, and with two three-pointers in the fourth, following another in the third. Chloe Escanillas also had three treys, finishing with 13. Two of those triples came in the fourth quarter.
Brooke Baisley led the Knights (23-4) – and all scorers – with 20.
The win gives Rutgers Prep its 10th county title in program history, and fourth straight, having won in 2020, 2022, 2023 and this season. In between they won the Skyland Conference’s top pod in the 2021 COVID-shortened season.
Click below for postgame reaction with Rutgers Prep’s Mikayla Blakes and head coach Mary Klinger, presented by Sportsplex at Metuchen: