Nottingham High School junior guard Tyasia Stephenson made her presence felt during her team's dominant 51-30 victory over Hamilton West last Tuesday.
Nottingham junior guard Tyasia Stephenson, center, led the Northstars to a dominant 51-30 victory over Hamilton West last Tuesday. (Michael Mancuso | For NJ.com) HAMILTON -- Nottingham High School junior guard Tyasia Stephenson made her presence felt during her team's dominant 51-30 victory over Hamilton West last Tuesday.
Stephenson was all over the court for the Northstars, netting a game-high 13 points and delivering staunch defense all night en route to the win. After the contest, the talented junior stated that she was hyped up for the game because of the opponent.
"This is, of course, a big game because they're our rivals, so we want to come out and play much harder," Stephenson told NJ Advance Media. "When we play them or Steinert, we want to win, and especially this year because we want to put up another CVC banner."
"This was a good win and our record's pretty good, it's much better than last year. From here we just want to keep building on the momentum and keep it going this year," Stephenson said. "We let that Princeton game get away from us but that's in the past. We're just looking toward the future now and I think we're a team to be reckoned with now, and we need another big win on Friday against Steinert."
Stephenson and the Northstars obviously made quite an impression on the court, as Hamilton West coach Erin Wolverton was highly complimentary of their performance after the final buzzer.
"Nottingham's got a nice team and they work very hard and they play team basketball," Wolverton told NJ Advance Media. "They run their offense well and they finish around the basket; they work hard. We're a young team and we need experience, but we're coming along and you could see a lot of good things tonight, but we haven't put everything together yet."
Nottingham coach Lauren Kelly was very happy with the way Stephenson and the rest of her team performed.
"We like to be the underdogs all the time and I don't even want to know a team's record before we play them," Kelly told NJ Advance Media after the rout. "We're not very good when we're the favorite in games because we play better as underdogs."
"We got a lot of very good play from a lot of people. Shaunice (Palms) did a great job rebounding, and Haylee (Kieffer) had one of her better games tonight and did a good job of finishing," Kelly said. "Ty (Stephenson) has been playing well and did again tonight."
Rich Cuccagna may be reached at rcuccagna@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @RichCuccagna. Find The Times of Trenton on Facebook.