Monroe’s Mia Marabuto drives with the ball against Middlesex in the GMC Tournament semifinals on February 18, 2025 at Monroe High School. (Photo: Mike Pavlichko)
It was setting up as a great matchup between two great scorers, Monroe’s Evangelina Francisco and Middlesex’s Jess Devine.
And it was, just not in the way most expected.
Instead of them trading threes and fast break points, they traded foul shots. A lot of them.
And in the end, it was a young sophomore, Monroe’s Kiera Longo, who turned out to be the difference. She matched a career high with 23 points en route to a 29-42 win for the second-seeded Falcons over the third-seeded Blue Jays.
The strategy is what left Francisco and Devine dueling it out at the charity stripe. Both teams were trying – sometimes successfully, sometimes not – to get in the paint and draw contact.
Francisco finished with 17 points, and she was 10 of 10 from the foul line. Devine was 9mof 9 from the line and finished with 18 points.
Notably, neither team led by more than seven, but both teams led by seven at various points throughout the game.
The win puts Monroe (19-9) in the GMC Tournament title game for the first time since 2020, when they lost to St. Thomas Aquinas. They made two prior appearances, in 2016 and 2015.
Middlesex falls to 19-7 with the loss.
Click below for postgame reaction from Monroe sophomore Kiera Longo and head coach Brian Hinz, presented by Sportsplex at Metuchen:
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