Columbia girls basketball players, from left, are senior Shana Desir, senior Allie Harris, junior Talia Baptiste and senior Bella Galatt.
MAPLEWOOD/SOUTH ORANGE, NJ — Despite finishing with an 11-14 overall record, the Columbia High School girls basketball team always gave a strong effort each game.
The Cougars, in fact, had strong showings in both the Essex County Tournament and the New Jersey State Interscholastic Athletic Association’s North Jersey, Section 1, Group 4 state tournament.
In the county tournament, the fifth-seeded Cougars defeated 12th-seeded Verona High School 58-41 in the first round on Jan. 28 at home before upsetting fourth-seeded Newark Academy of Livingston 46-42 on Feb. 4 to advance to the semifinals. The Cougars lost to eventual champion and top-seeded Immaculate Conception of High School 73-25 in the semi finals held at West Orange High School on Saturday, Feb. 11.
In the state sectional tournament, 12th-seeded CHS upset fifth-seeded and fellow Super Essex Conference foe Montclair High School 46-21 in the first round on Tuesday, Feb. 21, at Montclair. In the quarterfinals, Columbia took fourth-seeded Kearny HIgh School to overtime but dropped a tough 48-44 decision on Thursday, Feb. 23, to end the season.
The Cougars had four players who earned All–SEC–American Division honors, as selected by the divisional coaches. Talia Baptiste, a junior, made the first team; senior Shana Desir made the second team; and seniors Bella Galatt and Leah Connell each made honorable mention. The American Division is the highest division of the five divisions in the conference. They went 6-6 in the division and finished fourth out of seven teams behind division champion University High School of Newark. Immaculate Conception was second, followed by West Orange High School, Columbia, Caldwell High School, Mount St. Dominic and East Orange Campus High School.
The other key seniors for the Cougars were Samiya Hill, Allie Harris, Georgie Gassaro and Ruby Aylward.
CHS head coach Chuck Keegan was proud of his team’s season.
“The one thing I can say about my players is they played hard every game,” he said in an interview with the News-Record on Friday, March 10. “We were hit by a couple of injuries, which affected our record, but I thought we had a great showing in [both] the county tournament and the state tournament. That last game, as a 12 seed, we took the 4 seed into overtime, at their place. We had the lead late, but they came back and tied it up and made some shots at the end. But my girls played hard every minute of the way. I’m very proud of them.”
The Cougars will return three starters next season in Baptiste, and juniors Summer Lonning and Jaime Levi.
Keegan is looking forward to next season. “I think with a good offseason, we’ll be alright,” he said.
Photos by Joe Ragozzino
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