Franklin girls may be best sub-.500 team in Somerset County; but can they prove it against Gill St. Bernard’s for a trip to SCT finals?

Over the last couple of weeks, we keep hearing from area girls’ basketball coaches pumping up Franklin. They’re not in the Bellamy & Son Paving Top Ten, but you’d think they were by the way people are talking.

Granted they’re 8-14, but keep in mind the division they play in. The Skyland Delaware is loaded, with Rutgers Prep and Gill St. Bernard’s the co-champions, and defending North 2, Group 4 champion Hillsborough behind them.

Actually, they’re behind Franklin, too, even though they’re the three seed and the Warriors are the four.

Franklin has taken some losses on the chin, including 83-58 and 81-49 to Rutgers Prep. They lost 70-45 to Gill St. Bernard’s the second time around, but played then to a 13-point loss in the first week of January.

And they knocked off Hillsborough, 63-60, back on January 23rd, just four days before the county seeding meeting.

Thing is, they’ve lost to just about every team considered “better” than them, and beaten everyone they should handle

So, which team will show up when they tip off at 2:30 Saturday afternoon?

There’s one thing no one can question: Coach Darryl Robinson has one of the top, young, up-and-coming players in the area in Aleah Sunkins, a sophomore averaging 16.4 points per game and 9.6 rebounds. Junior Alissa Myers (8.7 points per game) is also a significant contributor, along with senior Precious Wheeler (5.6 per game).

On the other side, Gill – the top seed at 18-3 overall, 7-1 in the Skyland Delaware, co-champs with second-seed Rutgers Prep – is a cohesive unit that has gotten stronger throughout the season. Nowhere is that more evident than in how they played Prep, which has won the last four SCT titles and seven of the last nine.

Rutgers Prep had won 23 straight against Gill coming into this year. And they won again on December 17th, 61-38 in Somerset. But the Knights turned the tables in the New Year, with a 64-27 win up in Peapack-Gladstone, their first win over the Argonauts since the 2014 Somerset County Tournament final.

The cast is full of stars, too. Gandy Malou-Mamel is the top scorer at 17.6 points and an even ten rebounds per game. Junior Addy Platt is at 10.4 a game, and the rest of the experienced lineup includes standouts Tessa Lozner, Syndey Quinn and Maya Abramson.

Follow Alec Crouthamel on Twitter for live updates during the game, and he’ll have a recap postgame reaction afterwards on cjsportsradio.com.