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Vol. LXIII, No. 51
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Wednesday, December 23, 2009
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Vol. LXIII, No. 51
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Wednesday, December 23, 2009
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(Photo by Bill Allen/NJ SportAction)
HUMMING ALONG: Princeton University men’s basketball freshman forward Ian Hummer, right, battled for a rebound in a game earlier this season. Last Wednesday, Hummer contributed eight points and five rebounds in 29 minutes off the bench to help Princeton edge Monmouth 46-42 and win its third game in a row. |
During his playing days with the Princeton University men’s basketball team, Sydney Johnson put a premium on playing superb defense.
Johnson, a 1997 Princeton alum, is the program’s all-time leader in steals with 169. Former Tiger head coach Bill Carmody called Johnson “the best defensive player I have ever coached at Princeton.”
Johnson’s value as a defensive force is reflected by the fact that he won the Ivy League Player of the Year Award in 1997 averaging 9.3 points a game, the only person to win the honor while scoring less than 10 points a contest.
Now in his third season as the head men’s basketball coach at his alma mater, Johnson is instilling his commitment to defense into his charges.
Eamon Cuddy was a little shaky as he took the court last Friday to make his first career start for the Princeton High boys’ basketball team.
“To be honest, I was very nervous,” said junior forward Cuddy, who spent most of last winter on JV before getting called up to the varsity for post-season play.
“I tried to just focus on what I had to do; I’d be lying if I said I was completely confident.”
As the Princeton High girls’ swimming team competed at Lawrence High last Thursday, Serena Deardorff knew that she was facing one of the first stern tests of her high school career.
“Today was a pretty big challenge,” said PHS freshman Deardorff. “There was a lot of competition going on; it was a good meet.”
The precocious Deardorff showed that she was up to the challenge presented by the Cardinals, winning the 50-meter and 100-meter freestyle races and helping PHS to victory in the 200 medley and 400 free relays.
With some of its players having already left for the holidays, the Hun School boys’ hockey team faced an uphill battle in hosting undefeated LaSalle College High School (Pa.) last Friday.
The undermanned Hun squad fought valiantly, trailing only 1-0 going into the third period.
Over the last 15 minutes of the contest, however, the Raiders couldn’t hold the fort against the Explorer varsity ‘AA’ team, giving up three goals on the way to a 4-0 setback.
Coming off a disappointing loss to Pennington, Lexee Liaskos and her teammates on the Hun School girls’ basketball team brought some extra fire into their game last week at Lawrenceville.
“The thing about the Hun program, however long I have known it, is that it has had a really strong basketball team so I think the mentality was to come back from that,” said senior guard Liaskos, reflecting on the defeat to Pennington.
“Everyone on our team is competitive and loves to play. I think we all kind of came mentally prepared for this game. It was our first MAPL (Mid-Atlantic Prep League) game and I think we all wanted to bounce back and make a statement. We weren’t going to let the loss to Pennington hold us back.”