MIDLAND PARK – Sean O’Connor heard Thalia Ghalam and waited.
The Midland Park girls basketball coach was about to address his team at halftime, but Ghalam had beaten him to it. The senior captain implored her teammates to raise their intensity in the second half against Emerson and get the ball down low to sophomore center Sofia Hansen.
“I actually stood back in the hallway and waited for her to finish,” O’Connor said, “because what she was saying was 100 percent accurate.”
Midland Park came out of the locker room motivated, and Hansen went to work in the low post as the Panthers pulled away for a 65-51 victory over the Cavos in an NJIC Patriot game Thursday.
The gritty Cavos (9-4) showed every bit of their toughness, fighting back from a 13-point deficit early in the second quarter to make it a five-point game by halftime.
But Hansen finished with 24 points and scored 10 of them in the third quarter to push Midland Park’s lead back to 13 by the end of the period.
“This was an important game for us,” Hansen said. “We kind of just woke up.”
