Girls basketball: State title eludes Shawnee

TOMS RIVER — After the most successful season in school history, the Shawnee High School girls basketball team’s ride has come to an end.

Sunday afternoon, the Renegades fell 60-41 to Paterson Eastside in the Group 4 state championship at Toms River North. It was the first time that Shawnee, the South Jersey Group 4 champion, reached the state title game.

“Nobody expected us to get here and just getting to this point is special,” Shawnee senior captain Olivia Askin said. “It’s something that we never expected to happen. We played to the last minute, and that’s all I can ask. Losing stinks, but they were a good team and they deserved to win.”

The loss is the Renegades’ second in their last 15 games. They finished with the most wins in the county and a 26-5 overall record.

Askin scored 17 points with four 3-pointers to finish with 201 3s for her career. After a scoreless first half, junior Nikola Williams added 17 of her own with five rebounds. Williams (1,149 career points) and Askin (1,139) ended the season in fourth and fifth place, respectively, on the Renegades’ career scoring list.

“Everyone on our team has heart and this has been the most fun year that I’ve had so far,” Williams said. “We’re a young team and we have a lot of talent. We’ll still have it next year.”

Shawnee got out to a slow start and went down 13-3 less than five minutes into the game. Throughout the game, the Renegades made runs, but were unable to climb out of the initial deficit.

Every time they started to heat up, it seemed that the Ghosts had an almost immediate answer.

“I think we came out timid,” Askin said. “When you dig yourself into a 20-point hole at halftime, it’s hard to come back from that. We battled, but every time we scored, they scored. Our defense was a little lacking today, and that’s really where our faults were.”

Shawnee first-year coach Chrissy McGovern credited Paterson Eastside (27-3) with taking her team out of its comfort zone right away. She felt that her team was in trouble right from the get-go after missing five of its first six shots.

“We were playing catch-up the entire game, and I think it might’ve been a little bit different if we made some of our shots early in the game,” McGovern said. “I told the girls that this game does not define our season whatsoever. The kids played extremely well this year, worked hard, bought into the system and did everything I asked.”

Askin was the lone starting senior on the Renegades’ roster this winter. Shawnee’s other two seniors, Kristine Cugliotta and Gabby Zaugra, joined Askin on the court for the season’s final minutes. With four returning starters and some key bench players returning next year, the future is bright for Shawnee.

“This season was amazing and I couldn’t have asked for a better senior season,” Askin said. “It’s a bummer that we had to end the season with a loss, but we had a really good run.’’

Kevin Kolodziej: 609-871-8076; email, kkolodziej@calkins.com; Twitter, @KoloBCT