Tag: Trista Whitney

by Mike Pavlichko

Stellar sophomore campaign earns East Brunswick’s Ava Catanho CJSR GMC Girls’ Basketball Player of the Year

We get asked a lot about our process for naming a Player of the Year. It starts out that they have to be really good, of course, but there are a lot of very good ball players out there.

So, our next criteria is the value to their team. A team is just that, never one player, but sometimes, there’s one star who stands out, without whose contributions the success of that season might very well not have been possible.

For East Brunswick, that’s sophomore Ava Catanho.

Sure, senior Julianna DelosSantos-Branson had a huge impact, nearly averaging a double-double, with 64 steals, and no one really knew what she might be able to do this year coming off an ACL injury. Juniors Sophia Tannura and Zoey Alexio could hit the three, with 50 each. And sophomore Ave Krzywdzinski dished the ball to the tune of 161 assists with the best of them.

But without Catanho – the team’s top scorer with 543 points (18.7 per game) and a team-best 61 treys, and now a member of the 1,000 point club (at 1,011 and counting) – East Brunswick doesn’t reach the GMC Tournament finals, nor do the Lady Bears get to the CJ4 semis.

And for that reason, Catanho is our 2025-26 GMC Girls’ Basketball Player of the Year.

Catanho also has the athletic lineage: her mother, Kara (nee Motusesky), is an assistant under Travis Retzlaff, who was named CJSR Coach of the Year in the GMC as well, and was a thousand-point scorer at East Brunswick when she was in high school. Her father is Alcides Catanho, a standout football player at Elizabeth and Rutgers who spent two seasons in the NFL with New England and Washington.

“I’ve been shooting since I was in the crib,” Ava says.

And she’s still going to be shooting for years to come.

Click below to listen to East Brunswick sophomore Ava Catanho – with additional comments from head coach Travis Retzlaff – with Central Jersey Sports Radio’s Mike Pavlichko:

HONORABLE MENTIONS:

  • Jordan Barnes, St. Thomas Aquinas: Barnes finishes a four-year career in North Edison with 1,385 points and 746 rebounds, good for career averages of 11.6 points and 6.3 rebounds per game. This year, she averaged 16.2 points and 5.6 boards in helping lead STA to its record seventh straight GMC Tournament championship, and next year, she’ll be playing at Rider.
  • Trista Whitney, St. Thomas Aquinas: The senior – who played her first year at Edison – also has been a huge factor in the last three championship seasons for the Trojans. This year, she averaged 11.8 points and 5.2 rebounds per game, and next year, will play at Maryland-Eastern Shore.
  • Angel Smith, Woodbridge: The senior was consistent for the Lady Barrons, scoring double figures in all but four games this year, while also registering 15 double-doubles. She hit for 15.7 points per game and 11.2 boards, helping Woodbridge flip the script this year, going 17-9 coming off a 6-19 campaign a year ago.
  • Layla Gutierrez, North Plainfield: Finishing her career with 1,289 points, the senior was one of the league’s most prolific scorers the last three seasons. She even dropped 50 in a GMC Tournament game this season against New Brunswick, less than a month after scoring 42 against South Brunswick. And she opened the season with 30 against a solid Piscataway team.
  • Gabrielle Hill, Spotswood: Though her scoring was down a tad from last year (15.4 to 13.8), the junior more than doubled her rebounding numbers from a year ago, grabbing 6.4 a game this year. She also got to the foul line 24 more times and hit 34 triples on the season for the Chargers.
by Mike Pavlichko

Make it seven straight for St. Thomas Aquinas: Trojans top East Brunswick, 62-41, to win yet another GMC Tourney title

It never gets old for St. Thomas Aquinas.

Having won six straight GMC Tournament titles coming in to Friday night’s 40th championship game, second-seed East Brunswick hung around for a while. The Bears were down just six after one, and even had a chance to cut it to nine before the half, but missed a three and ended up down 12.

But the third quarter was the difference. Things opened up – for both teams – but the last thing anyone wants to do is get into a track meet with St. Thomas. They did, and STA extended its lead to 49-29 at the end of three, and by that time, it was well in hand.

In the end, it ended up as a 62-41 win for the top-seed St. Thomas Aquinas (22-5) over second-seed East Brunswick (21-5), as heard live on Central Jersey Sports Radio. It was the Trojans’ seventh straight title, extending their GMC-record streak, the longest for either the boys or girls in the 40-year history of the event.

Senior Jordan Barnes was the game’s high scorer, finishing with 20 points. She was MVP as a sophomore, and probably anyone could have been, but it went to Leah Kearney, well-deserved with a 12-point night, averaging 10 per game in the four tournament games.

The win wa also the 80th straight over GMC opponents – regular season and postseason – with their last loss coming in January of 2022, here against Monroe.

That means the senior fore of Barnes, Trista Whitney – who had nine in the final – and Kayla Navarro never lost a single game against a GMC opponent.

Click below for postgame reaction from Central Jersey Sports Radio’s Mike Pavlichko with junior and GMC Tournament MVP Leah Kearney, senior Trista Whitney, head coach Tim Corrigan, and senior Jordan Barnes, presented by Sportsplex at Metuchen:

by Mike Pavlichko

No. 2 St. Thomas Aquinas is tested, but pulls away late for 61-51 win over Saddle River Day

Having dominated the Greater Middlesex Conference for a while now – winning 78 straight against league competition going back to January 2022 – St. Thomas Aquinas has challenged itself with a strong non-league schedule.

And while Saddle River Day doesn’t have the kind of record they’ve had in the past, they’re a traditionally strong program that had won five of their last six games after getting a key transfer in the lineup after an injury, and proved to be a more than worthy opponent for the Trojans Monday afternoon in North Edison.

In a game that was tight all the way and went back-and-forth in the second and third quarters, the Trojans eventually built up to a 12-point fourth quarter lead and beat the visiting Rebels 61-51, in a game heard live on Central Jersey Sports Radio.

Senior Trista Whitney finished with 14 points – nine in the second half – with two treys, while fellow senior Jordan Barnes added 11, and senior Leah Kearney chipped in 13 for St. Thomas Aquinas (14-3), which is now on a nine-game win streak.

With STA known for its intense defense, seemingly getting in the way of nearly every pass, Saddle River Day (8-6) clearly watched some tape and was prepared, using crisp, quick passing to break the Aquinas pressure in the back court. But it was still just a six point STA lead at the break.

And while Rebel sophomore Grace Darling, the team’s leading scorer, finished with 26 points and three treys – seven points above her average – Aquinas made Harper Cohn, in just her seventh game back recovering from and ACL injury, nearly invisible in the scoring column, holding her to five points, and just two in the second half.

St. Thomas led just 46-43 at the end of three, but pulled away on the strength of a 15-8 final eight minutes.

Click below for postgame reaction from Central Jersey Sports Radio’s Mike Pavlichko with St. Thomas Aquinas senior Trista Whitney and head coach Tim Corrigan, presented by Sportsplex at Metuchen:

by Mike Pavlichko

Central Jersey Sports Radio GMC Girls’ Player of the Year: Leah Crosby of St. Thomas Aquinas helped lead Trojans to sixth straight title

The more things change, the more they stay the same.

The St. Thomas Aquinas girls’ basketball program has won six straight GMC Tournament titles, a county record, going back to 2019 when the school was still called Bishop Ahr. Three different coaches led them through those titles: Brittney Griffin in 2019 and 2020, Joe Whalen in 2022 and 2023, and Tim Corrigan the last two seasons.

Leah Crosby has been around for three of those, having spent her freshman and sophomore seasons at Aquinas before spending a year at Rutgers Prep. But she came back to the Trojans for her senior year, and – of course – won another championship.

On a team with a host of talent, it’s tough to pick any one player, even among the seniors. But Crosby has been the most prolific – and also steadiest scorer – of the bunch over her four years of scholastic basketball. She scored 900 points even at Aquinas alone, giving her 1,157 for her career counting the 257 points she scored last year with the Argonauts.

And while this is the Central Jersey Sports Radio GMC Girls’ Player of the Year award, we couldn’t think of anyone more deserving when also factoring in consistent play, year after year.

Crosby scored 329 points this year, but in just 21 games, as she had to sit out some due to her second transfer. But she averaged 15.7 points a game this year and is also an excellent free throw shooter, hitting at an over 80-percent clip.

Click below to hear Central Jersey Sports Radio’s GMC Girls’ Player of the Year Leah Crosby of St. Thomas Aquinas:

Here are our Honorable Mentions for GMC Girls’ Player of the Year:

  • Evangelina Francisco, Monroe: First-year head coach Brian Hinz says his Coach of the Year award is really a team award, and we agree. To that end, no one was more valuable for the Falcons this season in going 20-10 and reaching both the GMC Tournament finals and the Central JErsey Group 4 title game than Francisco. She joined the 1,000-point club this year, breaking the mark mid-season, and ending her career with 1,335 points. This season, she averaged 20.7 points per game, while also dishing out 126 assists and hitting 66 times from beyond the arc. More than the numbers, she was the heart and soul of the Falcons.
  • Jess Devine, Middlesex: Unassuming, small in physical stature, she was nothing else than huge on the floor for the Blue Jays her entire career, and another incredibly consistent performer. While her numbers were “down” a little this year as other options to take the weight off her emerged – like junior Mallory Gianchiglia and freshman Avery Iskra – she still averaged an eye-popping 18.6 points per game on a team that went 21-9. The Blue Jays reached the GMC Tournament and Central Jersey Group 1 semifinals in the final year of Devine’s stellar career.
  • Trista Whitney, St. Thomas Aquinas: We could have filled much of this space with great players from Aquinas, but here’s another one. Whitney scored the most points on the team this year with 386, averaging 12.9 per game, second to Crosby in that regard, but she also was second on the team in rebounds and an unselfish guard, dishing out 121 assists on the season. Not too shabby at all.
  • Lizzie Calandruccio, Spotswood: In an 18-8 season, Calandruccio scored double figures in 20 of 26 games this season, averaging 14.5 points per game and hitting 59 times from beyond the arc, a career best. She also was a McDonald’s All-American Game nominee along with just one other from the CJSR coverage area, Gandy Malou-Mamel of Gill St. Bernard’s. Excellent company to keep!

by Mike Pavlichko

St. Thomas Aquinas cruises past North Plainfield 108-46, will meet Monroe in Friday’s GMCT final

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: