City of Basketball Love

Jerome Taylor (@ThatGuy_Rome)
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IMMACULATA – In a matchup for sole possession of second place in the Atlantic East Conference, Cabrini’s women were looking for revenge. 

After losing the first matchup of the season to Immaculata on their home court, getting even was the goal for Cabrini coming into Wednesday night.

And they accomplished that goal with a 53-47 win over Immaculata for their sixth straight win.

“Losing to them on our home court should never happen, so this was like revenge for us,” Ashley Tutzauer said.

A 5-foot-5 graduate student out of Toms River (N.J.), Tutzauer led the charge with 22 points (8-19 FG, 6-9 3PT) and five rebounds in Cabrini’s (10-9, 5-2 AEC) win. Athletic success isn’t anything new for Tutzauer: she’s a three-sport star for Cabrini, playing soccer in the fall and lacrosse in the spring, a multi-year starter in all three sports.

The Cavaliers’ second-leading scorer (11.8 ppg) started the game red-hot from behind the arc, going 3-3 from deep in the first quarter, and she didn’t stop there.  

Tutzauer played her part on the defensive end with a pair of steals, crediting her work in other sports for her prowess as a defender on the hardwood.

“I’m the goalie [in soccer]… so it’s good for going side-to-side which is good for defense and with reaction time,” Tutzauer said. “[In lacrosse]... I do spin moves and I get a lot of interceptions and that comes from my basketball IQ.”

And though Cabrini’s Mitchell Kline Most Outstanding Senior Female Student-Athlete is a do-it-all athlete, in the second quarter the graduate student split the scoring load with fellow New Jersey native Brielle Fitzpatrick (Jamesburg); the sophomore scored all six of her points in the second frame.

That wouldn’t be the last time a New Jersey player complemented Tutzauer’s scoring on Wednesday.

Early in the fourth quarter, after Morgan Falcone led the Macs to a short-lived, 37-35 lead, Giana Rullo, yet another New Jersey product (Voorhees), tied the game at 37.

Rullo proved to be pivotal in the fourth quarter, as the freshman scored 7 of her 13 points in the game’s final frame. 

“She’s really come on strong for us; we use her like our sixth man off the bench,” Kate Pearson, who is in her 12th year as the head coach of Cabrini said, “Jersey kids really seem to fit in well for us at Cabrini.”

“I guess [Pearson] likes the Jersey girls,” Tutzauer said. “People always say we play Jersey girl basketball; I’m not sure what that means, but I guess it’s a good thing.”

To start the game, “Jersey Girl basketball” could’ve been code for stifling defense, as the Cavaliers held Immaculata (11-6, 4-3 AEC) to 23% from the field in the first quarter, largely keying on Theresa Kearney, who came into the game as the Mighty Macs’ leading scorer (12.7ppg), but on Wednesday, she was held to five points. 

“We tried to eliminate their best player [Kearney],” Tutzauer said. “We knew she was coming off a big game at Marymount (28 points), so we wanted to limit her points altogether.”

Immaculata stormed back in the second quarter on the back of freshman Reese Mullins, who  finished with 12 points and was a major catalyst in the comeback bid with eight points in the second quarter as the Macs ended the half down 25-21. 

Immaculata continued the comeback to start the second half,getting within two points to start the third quarter.

“We knew they were capable of that,” Pearson said. “No lead is safe against Immaculata.”

But Tutzauer picked up where she left off in the first half, drilling two threes on back-to-back possessions, before Cabrini took a 35-30 lead into the fourth quarter. Tutzauer still wasn’t done; in the final frame, she made her last trey with 7:30 remaining in regulation and the Cavaliers led the rest of the way. 

“I was feeling it, and when I’m feeling it, I shoot it,” Tutzauer said. “Distance has always been a big part of my game, and in games like this when I’m on fire I’m just going to keep shooting until they stop me.”

The Toms River North’s product’s shooting stroke has been something that the Cavaliers have become accustomed to. Coming into Wednesday's contest, she had the second-most made three-pointers in the conference and was the team's second-leading scorer. 

“She’s definitely very motivated, it was good to see her take the lead when we needed someone to knock down some shots,” Pearson said. “As a fifth-year senior she’s the one who’s been in these big games in the past, luckily she was ready for it.”

After the loss, the Mighty Macs are now looking up at two teams in the conference, Cabrini and first-place Marymount, with Alvernia next on the schedule.

With their sixth straight win, the Cavaliers now have additional momentum heading into a challenging stretch of their conference schedule, with Gwynedd Mercy (Feb. 5) and a possible matchup for the one-seed against Marymount (Feb. 9) up next on the docket. 

“We’ve got a big stretch,” Pearson said. “We talked about finding ways to win, like we did tonight.” 

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In the same way the Cabrini women were looking for revenge, so was Immaculata’s men's team. 

After dropping a contest against Cabrini on Monday, the Mighty Macs rode a balanced scoring attack  to an 88-81 victory over the Cavaliers. 

The most animated part of that scoring attack was freshman Dylan Crews, who finished with 17 points (4-8 FG, 3-4 3PT, 6-6 FT). The freshman came alive in the second half and was responsible for slowing down Cabrini’s Aquil Stewart.

“He’s probably our best defender, he loves defending,” Immaculata head coach Jayson Hyman said about Crews. 

Stewart was still able to find a way to score, finishing the game with 17 points (5-20 FG, 5-14 3PT, 2-3 FT)  as Cabrini jumped out to a 38-33 halftime lead. But evidenced by the volume of shots, the Immaculata defense — specifically Crews — made it tough on him. 

Immaculata started the game in a zone in an effort to limit Stewart’s ability to find teammates after driving into the lane. Stewart’s drive-and-dish game was a catalyst in Cabrini’s win on Monday, after Stewart found Ryan Byars for a basket with four seconds left. 

But on Wednesday, Stewart not only had to deal with zone defense, but Crews’ speed as man-to-man defender as well. The Cristo Rey product, who is also a track standout, was impactful on the defensive end early in the second half, drawing two offensive fouls. 

Crews saw extended minutes on Wednesday after senior Brandon McCullough, the team’s leading scorer, went down with an ankle injury in the second half. His injury was diagnosed as a left ankle sprain, but the team originally thought it was much worse. 

“He was panicking, he thought it was broken,” Hyman said. “My job is just to relax him, reassure him that he’s good […] knowing him, he’ll try to play [the] next game limping.” 

The next game for Immaculata (6-11, 3-2 AEC) will be a quick turnaround as they have to face Marymount tomorrow.