VIDEO: Crusaders overcome McCracken’s historical effort to edge Wildwood as rivalry renews

Posted: February 4th 2024

Ava Vogdes and Lola McGonigle helped lead Wildwood Catholic past Wildwood.

By BRIAN CUNNIFF

CapeAtlanticLive.com

WILDWOOD – The Wildwood Catholic Academy girls basketball team needed to overcome a historic individual performance to squeeze out a narrow victory in the first game played against island rival Wildwood in eight seasons.

The Crusaders used their distinct size advantage to negate a terrific effort by Macie McCracken and grind out a 61-55 win in front of a packed house in the Wildwood High School gymnasium Saturday evening.

“We kept going back and forth with a big lineup and an athletic lineup offensively and defensively and I think our size ended up weaning them down,” Wildwood Catholic coach Steve DiPatri said. “But give Wildwood a lot of credit. They got a lot of loose ball rebounds in the third and fourth quarters with the game in the balance and that helped keep them hanging around.”

Wildwood got off to a terrific start, taking a 20-13 lead after the first quarter.

Wildwood Catholic, however, used a 33-19 edge over the middle two quarters to take a seven-point lead into the final period. Wildwood cut the Crusader lead to three on two different occasions in the fourth quarter but never got any closer. Wildwood Catholic finally put away the pesky Lady Warriors when a long McCracken three-point shot with 13 seconds to play hit nearly every part of the rim before spilling out.

McCracken scored all but eight of Wildwood’s points after the first quarter. She knocked down six three-pointers, made numerous other baskets on a dizzying array of drives to the basket and was 5 for 6 from the foul line en route to a career-high 37 points. The junior guard also collected eight rebounds, sending her past the 500-rebound mark for her career. She exited the game with 1,548 career points.

McCracken’s 37-point output is believed to be the highest individual scoring total for a Wildwood player in the history of the Wildwood-Wildwood Catholic rivalry. (Wildwood Catholic's single-game scoring record is 42 points by Budy Blum in a triple overtime win in 1988.)

“She was fantastic,” DiPatri said. “That was the best performance I’ve seen by an individual player this year. I was very impressed with her. And I thought Lily (King) did a great job on her despite all that. That’s how good she was.”

But Wildwood Catholic was able to overcome that sensational performance by out-rebounding Wildwood by a two-to-one margin, the Crusaders securing 40 rebounds to Wildwood’s 20. Eighteen of Wildwood Catholic’s rebounds came on the offensive end.

Six-footers Ava Vogdes and Anastasia Bowman each flirted with a double-double for the Crusaders, Vogdes posting nine points and 10 rebounds and Bowman collecting eight points and nine rebounds. Both got the majority of their eight combined field goals on putbacks.

“This game was amazing,” Vogdes said. “We knew it was going to be crazy coming in here and to see everyone show up, it was just awesome to be in the gym and in that atmosphere. I loved it. I grew up watching this rivalry so it was amazing to finally be able to play Wildwood in front of that kind of crowd.”

Kaci Mikulski led Wildwood Catholic (19-2) with 14 points. Lola McGonigle added 10.

“We were all really excited. I was looking forward to this game all week,” McGonigle said. “Now that we finally did it, it’s a huge accomplishment to beat them. They’re a really good team and a really good program.”

Sophia Wilber chipped in eight points for Wildwood (14-5).

Saturday’s game marked the first time since December of 2015 that the teams played each other.

“This is great preparation for the playoffs, to play a game like this against a really good team in an electric atmosphere,” DiPatri said. “The kids all know each other. It came down to kids executing plays. That’s what you want this time of year.

“I know there are a lot of people who talk about competitive balance when it comes to schedules. But I say, let the local teams play each other. This is what high school sports should be about. Look at what just went on in that gym. It was great.”