Phil Anastasia: Grabiak's smarts bolster Haddonfield

When Lauren Friel was the girls' basketball coach at Lower Merion High School in the mid-1990s, the boys' team used to see a lot of box-and-one defense.

No wonder: The team's star player was Kobe Bryant.

"I used to talk to the boys' coach about some of the stuff they would run against it," said Friel, now the coach at Haddonfield High.

Haddonfield junior Emily Grabiak played the role of Bryant last night. She was the focus of Sterling's box-and-one defense in an important Colonial Conference Liberty Division game in the Silver Knights' gymnasium.

But top players find a way to affect games even when faced with specially designed defenses. Grabiak led all scorers with 15 points and lifted four steals as Haddonfield scored a 38-36 victory.

"She's so smart," Sterling coach Kate McDonald said. "She's a tough athlete and she's very well-rounded. She found a way to help her team win."

In a way, Sterling's defensive strategy worked to near perfection. Although Haddonfield ran some patterns that got Grabiak involved in the offense, the junior did not force the issue and scored just four of her points in half-court sets.

But she used her speed and anticipation to make play after play in the open court, scoring her other 11 points on layups after steals or on fastbreaks in the Bulldogs' transition game.

"That's what we had to do," Grabiak said after Haddonfield improved to 6-4 overall and 4-0 in the Colonial Liberty. "We were able to get out to half-court and jump their passes."

The other key to Haddonfield's victory was offensive production from other players.

Haddonfield junior Briana Mulava scored 13, hitting three jumpers from three-point range, and freshman Maddie Kiep came off the bench to score eight, including a pair of jumpers from beyond the arc.

"I have to give it to the other girls," Friel said. "[The Knights] were basically saying, 'We want the other four players to beat us.' That was my motivation in talking to them.

"We needed some other girls to step up, and Briana and Maddie did a great job, and Sheila [Kearney] played a strong game underneath."

Sterling (8-3, 3-1) fell behind, 23-12, midway through the second period when Grabiak made a steal and layup. But the Silver Knights battled back behind sophomore guards Kylie O'Donnell (11 points) and Monica Burch (10 points, plus lots of hard work as the chaser on Grabiak in the box-and-one defense).

Grabiak, a top player on Haddonfield's South Jersey championship soccer team, scored eight of her points in the second quarter as the Bulldogs took a 23-16 advantage into halftime.

Sterling closed within 30-28 when Burch scored on an offensive rebound early in the fourth quarter. But Grabiak made a steal on Sterling's next possession and drove for a layup while being fouled. She completed the three-point play for a 33-28 lead.

"We needed that," Grabiak said. "We had to stop the bleeding."

"Emily is such a tough player for us," Friel said. "The key was what she was able to generate off our defense. She's such a tenacious defender."

Grabiak made 7 of 10 shots from the field. In other words, she did not force anything against the box-and-one, and her patience and presence helped open some opportunities for her teammates.

Mulava took advantage, and Kiep did, too. Kiep's three-pointer with 3 minutes, 12 seconds left gave Haddonfield a 38-32 advantage and the Bulldogs nursed that lead to a big victory over their conference rivals.

"We needed this win really bad," Grabiak said. "It just shows that we have a lot of good players on this team. Everybody else stepped up."

Haddonfield 8 15 7 8 - 38

Sterling 7 9 10 10 - 36

H: Emily Grabiak 15, Sheila Kearney 2, Briana Mulava 13, Maddie Kiep 8, Paige O'Malley 0.

S: Monica Burch 10, Samantha Eicholtz 7, Danielle Fox 4, Tanjae Lewis 4, Kylie O'Donnell 11.