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Newton girls win section championship

| 12 Mar 2014 | 02:39
    Newton's Tara Lynch shoots from the foul line. Lynch scored nine points. Newton High School defeated High Point Regional High School in girls varsity final of the North Jersey, Section 1, Group 2 tournament on Monday, March 10, 2014. The final score was 41-36. High Point Regional High School in Sussex, New Jersey hosted the game.
    Newton's Tara Lynch shoots from the foul line. Lynch scored nine points. Newton High School defeated High Point Regional High School in girls varsity final of the North Jersey, Section 1, Group 2 tournament on Monday, March 10, 2014. The final score was 41-36. High Point Regional High School in Sussex, New Jersey hosted the game.
    Newton's Kayla Delnero (12) scored 19 points. Delnero scored 11 of her 19 points from the free throw line. Newton High School defeated High Point Regional High School in girls varsity final of the North Jersey, Section 1, Group 2 tournament on Monday, March 10, 2014. The final score was 41-36. High Point Regional High School in Sussex, New Jersey hosted the game.
    Newton's Kayla Delnero (12) scored 19 points. Delnero scored 11 of her 19 points from the free throw line. Newton High School defeated High Point Regional High School in girls varsity final of the North Jersey, Section 1, Group 2 tournament on Monday, March 10, 2014. The final score was 41-36. High Point Regional High School in Sussex, New Jersey hosted the game.
    High Point's Erin Woop is covered by Newton's Hannah Buckley. Newton High School defeated High Point Regional High School in girls varsity final of the North Jersey, Section 1, Group 2 tournament on Monday, March 10, 2014. The final score was 41-36. High Point Regional High School in Sussex, New Jersey hosted the game.
    High Point's Erin Woop is covered by Newton's Hannah Buckley. Newton High School defeated High Point Regional High School in girls varsity final of the North Jersey, Section 1, Group 2 tournament on Monday, March 10, 2014. The final score was 41-36. High Point Regional High School in Sussex, New Jersey hosted the game.
    At right High Point's Maddy Smith led her team in scoring with 10 points. Newton High School defeated High Point Regional High School in girls varsity final of the North Jersey, Section 1, Group 2 tournament on Monday, March 10, 2014. The final score was 41-36. High Point Regional High School in Sussex, New Jersey hosted the game.
    At right High Point's Maddy Smith led her team in scoring with 10 points. Newton High School defeated High Point Regional High School in girls varsity final of the North Jersey, Section 1, Group 2 tournament on Monday, March 10, 2014. The final score was 41-36. High Point Regional High School in Sussex, New Jersey hosted the game.
    Newton's Kayla Delnero (12) scored 19 points. Delnero scored 11 of her 19 points from the free throw line. Newton High School defeated High Point Regional High School in girls varsity final of the North Jersey, Section 1, Group 2 tournament on Monday, March 10, 2014. The final score was 41-36. High Point Regional High School in Sussex, New Jersey hosted the game.
    Newton's Kayla Delnero (12) scored 19 points. Delnero scored 11 of her 19 points from the free throw line. Newton High School defeated High Point Regional High School in girls varsity final of the North Jersey, Section 1, Group 2 tournament on Monday, March 10, 2014. The final score was 41-36. High Point Regional High School in Sussex, New Jersey hosted the game.

By George Hunter
SUSSEX — Newton High School defeated High Point Regional High School in the girls varsity final of the North Jersey, Section 1, Group 2 basketball tournament on Monday, March 10 in Sussex.

The final score was 41-36.
This is the first time since 2003 that Newton has won the North Jersey, Section 1, Group 2 basketball championship.

Newton's head coach Whitney Dugan was a freshman at Newton High School in 2003. The Lady Braves victory was extra meaningful for Dugan, who has been coaching high school basketball for four years, three of them as a head coach.

"It feels great. we had to fight for it, it wasn't given to us," Dugan said. "Our goal was to make it to the sectional finals and to win the sectional finals. We believed we could be champions and now we are."

Newton player Hannah Buckley echoed her coach's enthusiasm.

"Oh it feels incredible," Buckley said. "I can't believe we did it. We had this goal [of] winning a championship from day one of the season and now we actually completed it."

"At half time our heads were down because we were behind. We knew we weren't playing our game. But we told each other to pick our heads up and that we could come back and win. We just slowly chipped away," she said.

And the Newton Braves came back indeed. But the High Point Wildcats didn't make it easy for Newton. High Point and Newton went back and forth in a hard fought battle on the hardwood in front of a filled-to-capacity crowd. This game could have went either way. Through most of the last five minutes of the game there was only a two point difference. At one minute and thirty one seconds left the score was 35-34 with Newton leading. High Point eventually got into foul trouble towards the end enabling Newton to pull away in the final seconds.

Newton's Kayla Delnero scored a game high 19 points. Teammate Tara Lynch contributed nine points. High Point's Maddy Smith led her team in scoring with 10 points.

Newton will face Weequahic High School in the state semifinals. The game will take place on Thursday, March 13 at 5:00 pm at Bloomfield High School in Bloomfield.

Team season records: Newton 23-4, High Point 23-4.