Cinnaminson boys and girls basketball teams were both off to a rocky start at the beginning of the season, each for their own reasons. Losing a vast majority of their team with all of the graduating seniors both had their work cut out for them this year.

When tryouts began early December neither teams were unsure about how their seasons would turn out. They worked together throughout their seasons molding their teams with the girls ending the regular season with a 19-7 record and the boys possessing a 9-17 record. With the ending of the seasons, both teams will start the first round playoffs tonight at home.

The Cinnaminson Pirates girls basketball team hosts Oakcrest tonight.  Coach Bret Jenkins is happy with the progress of the team over this season.

“I think we’ve had a pretty successful year with 18 wins with one more regular season game to go, I think coming into the season we weren’t exactly sure of where we were going to be with six graduating seniors and a lot of scoring from last year so I’m pretty happy with where we are so far. I’m really happy that we were able to be home especially at the same time as the boys because it’s a pretty cool night when you can both be home at the same. Oakrest is very good, they’re an athletic team with two very good players so it’s going to be a challenge. Our identity is to play really good defense and make sure we’re playing hard. offensively, hopefully we can knock down some shots and be patient”,” said Head Coach Bret Jenkins.

Tonight, the girls will have to try to stop the Oakcrest duo of Brielle Smith (12 points per game) and Ionyonia Alves (11 points per game), who will lead the charge for the 9-13 Falcons.  Both teams will be looking to get to a second round game that will most likely be hosted by Haddonfield on Wednesday, the section’s second seed.

The Cinnaminson Pirates boy’ss basketball team also has a home playoff game vs. Lower Cape May on Monday.  Assistant Coach Patrick MacNamara thinks the team had improved greatly throughout the season and thinks they are battled-tested, which sets the stage for a big game for the Pirates for tonight.

“We are very young we start three sophomores so coming into this year we knew that it’d be difficult for us with lack of experience. Though our record doesn’t show how strong we are, we have been in a lot games and have lost a lot in the last minutes which just gets back to our lack of experience. But I think our guys are extremely talented they play extremely hard we’re getting better every day,” McNamara continued.  “We’ve got a very good seed in the playoffs… which means we get a home playoff game. Coming this year we didn’t we would get that high of a seed so that part has been pretty good. Our first round play off match is an interesting match up (against Lower Cape May, who has) one good player who averages in the high 20s (27-28 per game). He’s a really dangerous player we have to shut him down … if we limit his point I think we might have a good chance of winning. Collectively, if we play good defense and share the ball on offense we’ll have a great shot at winning.”

The team will have to work to contain Lower Cape May’s guard Tyron Garland, who is averaging over 20 points per game for the Tigers.