St. Thomas Aquinas sophomore Lauryn Downing lines up a shot in the GMC Tournament semifinals against North Plainfield on February 18, 2025 at Monroe High School. (Photo: Mike Pavlichko)
Straightforward and business-like. A well-oiled machine. Superb.
All of those adjectives could be used to describe the St. Thomas Aquinas girls’ basketball team on just about any night in the cold months of winter, as they roll through the GMC schedule, seemingly year-after-year.
Tuesday night was yet another example, a typical Trojans game.
Top-seed St. Thomas Aquinas clinched its sixth straight trip to the GMC Tournament final with a 108-46 win over 13-seed North Plainfield, in a game heard on Central Jersey Sports Radio, giving them a chance to go and win an unprecedented sixth straight GMC Tournament title.
They did it with everyone getting into the scoring column, and a lot of them juniors. Jordan Barnes scored 16. Trista Whitney led the way with 18. Leah Crosby – back from a year at Rutgers Prep – added 15. Sophomore Lauryn Downing had 14, including three treys, and senior Adrianna Summerset had 11. Senior Morgan Jottka came off the bench to score nine, all from beyond the arc.
This one was over fairly early. Aquinas built a 28-7 lead after one – North Plainfield briefly had a 3-2 lead – and the Trojans led 61-15 at the half.
In the second, both both teams having all their starters in, Aquinas head coach Tim Corrigan called off the defense, and the game got quite entertaining, with both teams throwing up wild threes and hitting them, some with sweet kisses off the glass, to the delight of those who remained all the way to the end.
Aquinas (21-6) will face second-seed Monroe in Friday night’s 6 pm final back at Monroe High School, a game that can be heard on CJSR, followed by the boys’ title game at 8. The Canucks fall to 8-17 with the loss.
Click below for postgame reaction from St. Thomas Aquinas junior Trista Whitney and head coach Tim Corrigan, presented by Sportsplex at Metuchen:
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