VIDEO: Early hot shooting, 2Q defense lift Wildwood to key victory in Hall’s Carpet Care Game of the Week

Posted: January 13th 2024

By BRIAN CUNNIFF

CapeAtlanticLive.com

WILDWOOD – The players and coaches from the Wildwood High School girls basketball team weren't happy with their defensive effort in a 63-54 win over Penns Grove Thursday.

The next day, the Lady Warriors did something about it.

Back on the court 24 hours later for another game against a good opponent, Wildwood used hot first-half shooting and vice-like second-quarter defense to put away Timber Creek, the Lady Warriors eventually posting a 59-38 victory.

“We learned from our mistakes from (Thursday) and that helped us win today,” said Wildwood senior point guard Sophia Wilber. “It showed us what we needed to fix and it worked. We did everything our coaches told us to do.”

Wildwood (8-3) knocked down the deep shot with precision from the game’s outset, the Lady Warriors sinking five three-pointers in the opening quarter in building a 21-11 lead. Ironically, star junior Macie McCracken did not score in the opening quarter. Instead, freshman Rebecca Benichou dropped three three-pointers and sophomore Angela Wilber made two to highlight the team’s offense in the quarter.

McCracken quickly got going in the second quarter, posting 13 points in the frame. Nine of them came on three three-pointers.

Wildwood made 13 three-pointers for the game, nine in the first half.

“Rebecca right off the jump was hitting threes, Angie was killing it hitting threes and Macie was shooting great,” Sophia Wilber said. “I think we all did a great job today with our shots. We were all calm. We had our feet under us. There were no rushed shots. We were composed today.”

Most impressive about the second quarter, however, was Wildwood’s defense, which shut out the Chargers in the frame. The 18-0 run gave Wildwood a practically insurmountable 39-11 lead at the break.

Angela Wilber paced four Wildwood players in double figures with 19 points. McCracken finished with 17 points, Benichou added 12 and Sophia Wilber chipped in 11.

Nicholle Green scored 19 points to lead Timber Creek (7-4).

Wildwood faces another difficult game Sunday when it takes on Lower Cape May in the back end of a boy-girl doubleheader on the Caper Tigers’ campus. The games, at noon and 2 p.m., will be broadcast live on the Cape Atlantic Live YouTube channel and the Cape Atlantic Live Facebook page. Lower Cape May is dedicating the games to Morgan’s Message, an organization that promotes mental health awareness and treatment for student-athletes.

Wildwood (8-3) takes a three-game winning streak into Sunday’s game with its county rival.

“It was huge for us to win these last two games. That has us going into the weekend strong and it gets us excited for Sunday,” Sophia Wilber said. “Timber Creek was a good team. We’ve played a lot of good teams lately and we haven’t been able to be on the winning side of the game in some of them, so it was huge for us to win this. They’ve been beating some good teams as well, so it kind of shows us where we stand.”