Lady Bears Overcome Early Deficit to Charge Past Chargers
SPOTSWOOD, NJ—On Sunday morning, GMC Hoops began the New Year with some Greater Middlesex Conference girls hoops action as Spotswood hosted East Brunswick in the 3rd Annual Noppenberger-Visokay Challenge that kicked off a full day of hoops in the SchoolCraft North-South Girls Basketball Showcase at Spotswood High School to benefit the Valerie Fund for Pediatric Children’s Cancer. Both teams entered the game off to fine starts on the season, but EB overcame an early deficit to defeat the Chargers for the third straight year, 68-39.
The Lady Bears fell behind early 7-2 as Spotswood, led by senior forward Allison Clarke charged out of the gates early. In the end though, East Brunswick’s depth in the form of twelve different players scoring, but relentless full court pressure disrupted Spotswood’s offensive rhythm, and wore the Chargers down. Junior forward, Tamea El, led the way for the victors with a team high 13 points.
Fellow classmate and junior guard, Annie Nezaria, chipped in with 12 points while junior forward Brooke Motusesky and senior guard Sam Lederman added 8 points. Junior guard Nicole Motusesky knocked in a couple first half threes to contribute 6 points to the win. Clarke led the way in the defeat for Spotswood with a game high 14 points while Gianna Perez (two threes) and girls soccer standout, Kirti Craig, (two baskets and two free throws) each chipped in with 6.
Seven of the eight Lady Charger players that entered the game scored. East Brunswick enjoyed advantages in points scored inside the arc (42-28), from long distance (18-9), and the charity stripe (10-2) to earn its victory. The Lady Bears overcame Spotswood’s fast start by scoring 17 of the last 21 points of the opening frame including a score from El at the 3:45 mark and back to back threes by Nicole Motusesky to cap the surge for a 19-11 lead.
East Brunswick raised its lead a bit more by outscoring Spotswood by an 8-7 margin over the first 4:35 of the second as Nezaria got two scores during the run for a 27-18 advantage with a little less than three and a half minutes remaining before the intermission. Despite the efforts of Clarke, who scored in transition, in the paint, and from beyond the arc in the first half, the Lady Chargers were only able to trim the deficit to 30-22 at halftime.
Coming out of the locker room, EB built its lead to double digits to 36-22 by scoring the first six points of the third period including a layup from the left side by Brooke Motusesky that forced Spotswood to call time at the 5:30 mark of the third. Following the timeout, the Lady Bears continued to pull away by scoring 11 of the last 19 points of the frame including a buzzer beating and one by Caitlin Gay to lead 47-30 heading into the fourth.
Starting the fourth with a 6-4 run, East Brunswick increased its lead further to 19 at 53-34 as Nicole Motusesky, who demonstrated some fine playmaking as well during the contest, dished to her left to a sprinting El for a layup at the 5:44 mark. EB head coach, Travis Retzlaff then put in the reserves, who also contributed with scores from Kendall Clarritt (4 points), Jorden Oster (2 points), Sophia Winston (2 points), and Sam Motusesky (1 point) to round out the 68-39 victory.
The Lady Chargers also had some of its supporting cast score during this time as well including Ava Fama (5 points), Lizzie Calandruccio (4 points), Ava Hellerich (2 points) and Lauren Guyette (2 points). The victory gave EB, which also got contributions from both Rebecca Perez (4 points) and Julia Perez (3 points), its fourth straight win after losing its season opener at Old Bridge (49-47) to improve to 4-1 overall on the season. Meanwhile, Spotswood lost its first game of the year, and dropped to 2-1.
DID YOU KNOW? Spotswood’s leading scorer in the game, Allison Clarke, is the sister of Jimmy Clarke, a former Spotswood hoops standout, who graduated in 2020 with 324 career points including 236 in 26 games his senior year for an average of 9.1 points per game. Lady Chargers reserve, Lauren Guyette is the sister of another Spotswood boys hoops Class of 2020 standout, George Guyette, who led the team in scoring in 2019-2020 with 290 points including 80 three pointers, and finished with 399 points in 53 games, or an average of 7.5 points per game in his career.
As mentioned earlier, Spotswood senior guard, Kirti Craig, is a girls soccer standout at the school, who signed a letter of intent to play soccer at the University of Massachusetts next fall. Craig played varsity soccer all four years at Spotswood, and scored 60 goals and handed out 41 assists during that time according to NJ.com. In her third year of varsity hoops, Craig has tallied 211 points, 104 rebounds, 97 steals, and 85 assists in 44 games.
Lady Chargers head coach, Vin Vizzi, has been running the girls varsity program for four seasons now, and was the JV coach before that. He was a letter winner in three varsity sports: Soccer, Boys Basketball, and Baseball. A graduate of Kean University, Vizzi, who has also coached JV soccer and JV baseball, was a member of the 2008-09 Chargers boys basketball team that reached the Central Jersey Group 2 Semifinals with the likes of 1,000 point scorers Cody Pace and Ross Gerhart as well as a supporting cast consisting of Tom and James Pareti, Tyler Osofsky, Mike Liming, and Pat Dwyer.
East Brunswick has a trio of Motusesky girls: Sam, Nicole, and Brooke. Sam and Nicole Motusesky are the twin daughters of John Motusesky (EB Class of 1981) while Brooke is the daughter of Glenn Motusesky (Class of 1984). All three are the nieces of East Brunswick boys basketball head coach, Mark Motusesky (EB Class of 1988), who has been the head of the program since the 2013-14 season after being a long time assistant to Bo Henning. He was also an assistant to North Brunswick head coach Ed Breheney when he guided the Raiders to their only GMCT boys title in 1997.
The Motusesky trio are also the nieces of Keith Motusesky (EB Class of 1986), who teamed up with the likes of big man, Greg Berliner, Bill Zahn, Tom Jaronski, Chris Brill, and Chris Ciatto to go 24-3, win the GMC Red in the inaugural season of the conference in 1985-86, reach the 1986 GMCT Semifinals, and defeated Franklin (87-69) in the Central Jersey Group 4 Championship at Bridgewater East High School. The 1985-86 Bears then lost to Camden in the Group 4 State Semifinals at Rutgers.
All three of the Motusesky girls along with Nezaria were also members of the 2019-20 EB JV Girls team that defeated Monroe in the 2020 East Brunswick JV Girls Tournament Championship.