Somerville’s Amaya Miller looks to make a move against Cranford in the North 2, Group 3 semifinals in Somerville on March 4, 2025. (Photo: Mike Pavlichko)
Any sport, any level, Somerville-Immaculata is one of the great rivalries in Central Jersey.
So, when their two girls’ basketball teams step on the floor Thursday evening in just the second game of the year for both schools – and their first of two scheduled meetings this year – expect another tight game full of physicality and emotion.
The Pioneers have won eight straight in the series and ten of the last eleven, with seven of the eight victories in that streak coming by ten or fewer points. They met twice last year, including a 16-point Somerville win in December, and a 60-56 victory in mid-January.
The Spartans’ last win came in 2015, a 58-46 win.
You can hear Thursday night’s game between No. 6 Somerville (1-0) and Immaculata (0-1) live on Central Jersey Sports Radio, with tip-off set for 7 pm and pregame at 6:45. Mike Pavlichko will call all the action; click here to listen.
Somerville loses thousand-point scorer Charlotte Taylor (Wilkes University) to graduation with her 11.5 point per game and team-best 146 assists, but there is plenty of talent back. Top scorer Kaylee Lauber (16.4 ppg, 5.09 rpg, 30 treys) returns for her senior season, along with Amaya Miller, the third player from last year’s starting five to average over ten points a game. They’ll be relied upon to score even more this season.
Lauber is just five points away from joining the 1,000-point club herself.
For Immaculata, top-scorer Alex Regan is back; as a sophomore, she led the team in scoring with 12.3 points and ten rebounds per game, plus a team-best 46 treys. And now, another year older, she’ll be even more of a leader, along with Caroline Duffey, who’s back for her senior year after scoring 9.5 points per game, and hitting 44 threes in her junior campaign. They also add thousand-point scorer Rhaiyna Brown, who played the last two seasons at Timothy Christian, and is the daughter of Rutgers women’s basketball coach Coquese Washington.
Click below to hear preview interviews with both head coaches and Central Jersey Sports Radio’s Mike Pavlichko:
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