Red Devils

Rancocas Valley senior Lauren Gaskill was distraught when she had to give up baseball around age 9 after finding out that softball was the high school sport for girls. "It was disappointing when I found out I couldn't play baseball my entire life," Gaskill said. "So I went over to softball and it worked out OK. " That might be the understatement of the year. Gaskill was an all-star in baseball, but she took it to another level in a sport she would grow to love - and dominate.

These guys from Penns Grove, they move pretty well with chips on their shoulders. They block, tackle, break loose for punt returns, jump on about a dozen fumbles - OK, it was only five - and overwhelm the defending sectional champions despite all that extra baggage. Or maybe because of it. "We're over that," Penns Grove coach Kemp Carr said of last season and his team's disqualification from the South Jersey Group 1 tournament. Nobody believed Carr as he stood on his team's home field after Saturday's 54-0 rout of Glassboro in the season opener.

If Rancocas Valley High is ever going to make a dent in the Burlington County Liberty Division basketball standings, this may be the year. Fourth-year coach Ron Powell has several returning starters and a crop of talented newcomers who could possibly lift the Red Devils to respectability. Last season, Rancocas Valley finished a dismal 7-15 overall and 6-10 in the league. However, many Liberty powerhouses such as Willingboro, Kennedy, and Holy Cross lost key players to graduation, leaving this season's race wide open.

With a good nucleus of returning players, girls' basketball coach Walt Marlin of Penns Grove had reason to believe his team would do well this season. The Red Devils had never had much luck in the small-school Classic Division of the Tri-County Conference, but maybe, Marlin thought, this would be the year his team would make a move in the division. Marlin never got a chance to find out, however, because an enrollment increase at Penns Grove made it necessary for the Red Devils to switch to the conference's big-school Royal Division.

It didn't take long to figure out whether Strath Haven was overconfident for its first-round PIAA District 1 Class AAA game with visiting Avon Grove Tuesday night. After two minutes, the Panthers led 8-0. After four, it was 17-0. After six minutes, their lead was 24-0. And at the end of the first quarter, it was 26-2. When the game was mercifully over, the scoreboard read Strath Haven 70, Avon Grove 23, and 17 Panthers had played, including six just called up from junior varsity.

Kennedy High's Sean McClellan, who first-half production was hindered by foul problems, erupted for seven critical points in last night's frenetic fourth quarter at Rancocas Valley. But the 1,000 fans in attendance won't remember McClellan's points. Instead, they'll remember his dramatic block and end-to-end rush in the final minute that keyed Kennedy's riveting, 81-73 Burlington County League Liberty Division upset over Rancocas Valley. With the victory, the Gryphons (7-2 overall, 4-1 league)

Rancocas Valley girls' basketball coach Jerry Dunn lost plenty of offensive firepower to graduation, but don't put his Red Devils down for the count yet. With seven letter-winners returning from a club that posted a 22-4 overall record and shared the Burlington County Liberty Division championship in 1987-88, the Red Devils should once again be among the area's elite clubs. Dunn lost all-South Jersey performer Cindy Calvert, a career 1,000-point scorer, to graduation. Rancocas Valley will see the return of potential all-league performers in senior guard Kerri Perinchief and junior center Sandy Alcott.

Call them Road Warriors. Feed them pizza and Gatorade and put them on a bus for a long ride to an unfamiliar gymnasium, and there's not much the Rancocas Valley boys' basketball team can't accomplish. "We love playing away from home," junior guard Tariq Jett said. Rancocas Valley (19-11), the Central Jersey champion, will play another game away from home at noon Sunday. This time, it's the Group 4 state finals against Paterson Eastside (19-8), the North I champion, at Rutgers University.

Rancocas Valley boys' basketball coach Ron Powell will have plenty of firepower on the outside and a big question mark inside. With a veteran backcourt led by senior guard Demetrius Rosado, the Red Devils could emerge as a top contender in the tough Burlington County Liberty Division. The only big question remaining for Powell, whose team sported a 17-9 overall record last winter, is how to replace Alonzo Spellman, a dominating force at center last season. Spellman, a heavily recruited two-time All-South Jersey football selection, left the team during the preseason saying he wanted to concentrate on his grades.

Rancocas Valley High coach Jerry Dunn won't expect miracles this season, but he will expect to see plenty of promising signs. The Red Devils, who compiled a 19-4 overall record last season and finished second in the Burlington County League Liberty Division race, graduated 10 players and are clearly rebuilding. But Dunn has many promising newcomers to blend in with two letter-winners, giving Rancocas Valley a chance at respectability. "We lost some very good players, and we lost a lot of depth," said Dunn, a second-year coach.

Cherokee's Michelle Gonzales reached 100 career goals while leading the 13th-seeded Chiefs to a 14-13 upset at No. 4 seed Eastern on Monday, in a South Jersey Group 4 opening-round match of the NJSIAA girls' lacrosse tournament. Gonzales had a game-high five goals and Lauren Thomas contributed a hat trick to a balanced attack, as Cherokee avenged a pair of regular-season losses to the Vikings. Austyn Cuneo and Danielle LaRocca had four goals apiece for Eastern, which outscored Cherokee, 32-13, in dominating their two Olympic Conference American Division meetings.

Righthander Jamie Minix allowed four hits in six shutout innings Thursday as Rowan (37-7) defeated Misericordia, 4-0, in the first round of the NCAA Division III softball tournament, in Union, N.J. Minix, a senior from Kingsway, struck out four and raised her record to 12-6. Profs leftfielder Jennifer Arcella homered and drove in two runs. Rowan, seeded third in the regional, will play again Friday at 4 p.m. In other first-round games, top-seeded Montclair State shutout Baruch, 8-0. Fourth-seeded College of New Jersey defeated fifth-seed Alvernia, 2-1, in nine innings.

Ryan Bell moves all over the baseball field. He pitches. He catches. He plays left field, shortstop, and third base. But now Bell and the rest of the Burlington Township baseball team is going somewhere new: into the Joe Hartmann Diamond Classic. "It's huge for us," said Bell, a junior who led Burlington Township to a 7-6 victory over Rancocas Valley in a Burlco Liberty game on Tuesday. "It's a great opportunity for the team. " Bell pitched, played left field, and caught as Burlington Township improved to 10-4 overall and 5-0 in the Liberty Division.

  Guard Natalya Lee, Rancocas Valley The 5-foot-7 senior set the tone for one of the most successful four years that the Red Devils girls' basketball squad has had. Lee, a 1,000-point scorer, averaged 11.4 points this season. Her leadership and defensive skills - she was arguably the best one-on-one defender in South Jersey - were probably her greatest assets. Lee will move on to play for Division II Kutztown University.   Forward Aliyah Murray, Delran The junior is a tough, athletic player who can do just about anything on the court.

It says something about the talent of a team when, after it accomplishes so much, the most pressing question is "Do you think the season was a disappointment?" Well, was it? "Of course it wasn't," senior Natalya Lee said, speaking for her Rancocas Valley team, this year's Inquirer team of the year in South Jersey girls' basketball. The list of achievements goes on and on. RV hasn't lost to a South Jersey opponent in almost two full seasons. It won its second straight South Jersey Invitational Basketball Tournament title, and was No. 1 in The Inquirer's South Jersey rankings from start to finish.

Freshman guard Jordan Wallace scored a career-high 22 points and Malik Clark netted 21, powering the host Collingswood Panthers past GCIT, 70-62, on Friday in nonleague boys' basketball. The visiting Cheetahs had reason to cheer early in the game, when Kevin Smith scored his 1,000th point on a layup with 3 minutes left in the first half. The senior wound up with 18 points, and closed out his career with 1,009. In other nonleague action: Third-ranked Paulsboro orchestrated a familiar game plan, as Xavier Lundy lit up the scoreboard early and often in leading the Red Raiders to their 26th win without a loss, 88-68, at Kingsway.

Rancocas Valley stands alone atop The Inquirer's girls' basketball rankings, but the Red Devils won't finish in the same lofty position in their own division. That distinction belongs to Trenton Catholic, which used a pair of free throws by Isis Young with 13 seconds remaining to pull out a 56-54 win at Rancocas Valley on Friday, giving the Iron Mikes the Burlington County League Liberty Division crown. Robin Perkins (18 points), Young (13) and Dominique Ward (12) led the way for Trenton Catholic, which finished 8-0 in the division - including a 59-43 home win over the Red Devils on January 19. Rancocas Valley (20-4 overall, 6-2 division)

Freshman guard Jordan Wallace scored a career-high 22 points and Malik Clark netted 21, powering the host Collingswood Panthers past GCIT, 70-62, on Friday in nonleague boys' basketball. The visiting Cheetahs had reason to cheer early in the game, when Kevin Smith scored his 1,000th point on a layup with 3 minutes left in the first half. The senior wound up with 18 points, and closed out his career with 1,009. In other nonleague action: Third-ranked Paulsboro orchestrated a familiar game plan, as Xavier Lundy lit up the scoreboard early and often in leading the Red Raiders to their 26th win without a loss, 88-68, at Kingsway.