Kiera Longo – Central Jersey Sports Radio

Even if they had no idea Layla Gutierrez scored 50 points Monday night in a GMC Tournament preliminary round game against New Brunswick, Monroe had every idea of her talents, having split a pair of regular season games against North Plainfield already this year.

And while she finished with 19 Wednesday, Monroe did its job against her all game, throwing double- and triple-teams her way, trapping, and – most importantly – holding her scoreless in the third quarter.

That was the decisive eight minutes in the game, as the seventh-seeded Falcons won the quarter 19-3, and pulled away in the fourth for a 61-43 victory over 10th-seed North Plainfield in the GMCT’s round of 16.

The Falcons (9-10) will move on to Saturday’s quarterfinal round against either second-seed East Brunswick or 18th-seed North Brunswick; that game tips at 6 pm Wednesday in East Brunswick.

Kiera Longo – battling a bit of a bug in the morning – was healthy enough to score 22 points for Monroe to lead all scorers.

In the second quarter, when Monroe actually got the lead back on just the contest’s second lead change, freshman Avery Tanjutco nailed back-to-back threes that not only gave her team the lead for good, but brought the house down, and gave the Falcons some confidence.

Things started out well for Monroe, which jumped out to a 4-0 lead early, but North Plainfield (5-16) went on a 13-2 run to take a seven-point lead, their biggest of the game, and the Canucks were up 13-11 after one.

But Monroe settled in in the second, and led by five at the half before their well-rounded effort in the third quarter helped earn them the win.

Click below for postgame reaction from Central Jersey Sports Radio’s Mike Pavlichko with Monroe junior Kiera Longo and head coach Brian Hinz, presented by Sportsplex at Metuchen:

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: