By Rob Potter
LIVINGSTON MANOR — With every basket Livingston Manor’s Marissa Diescher made in Monday night’s Orange County Interscholastic Athletic Association (OCIAA) Division VI basketball game between the Lady Wildcats and visiting Family School Lady Falcons, her family members and friends sitting in the bleachers played close attention.
They started counting, sometimes aloud to those sitting next to them, at 971 in the first quarter and kept adding as the game unfolded.
With 5:24 left in the fourth quarter, they stopped counting as Diescher’s layup gave her 1,000 points for her varsity basketball career.
The game was halted momentarily as Diescher’s teammates congratulated her and Coach Kevin Clifford handed her a basketball which had “1,000 points” written on it.
Those last two points gave the sophomore guard a total of 29 for the evening. She left the game to a nice ovation from the crowd and spent the rest of the game watching from the bench as the Lady Wildcats wrapped up a 67-7 victory.
Diescher also grabbed 12 rebounds and dished out 10 assists for a triple-double.
Two other Lady Wildcats, junior forward Angela Trotti and sophomore guard Angela Zayas, scored in double figures. Trotti had 12 points, while Zayas recorded 11 points.
Senior forward Danielle Baker added eight points for Manor (14-5, 7-3 Div. VI).
Sheree Brutcher led The Family School (0-19, 0-10 Div. VI) with three points.
Following the game, Diescher said she realized that she could reach the milestone during the evening as her parents and a few other people already knew how close she was to the magic number.
“It’s a great accomplishment,” she said.
But she was quick to give credit to her fellow Lady Wildcats.
“I thank all of my teammates,” Diescher said. “I would not have been able to score any points without them. They are great.”
She was also focused on the rest of the season, including a possible meeting with Div. VI champion Chapel Field, which defeated Manor twice this season, in next week’s Section IX Class D Tournament.
“I just want our team to keep winning games,” she said.
Clifford noted that Diescher might have been able to score her historic basket earlier in the contest.
“She had chances for about five or six layups in the first half, but she unselfishly passed the ball to a teammate who was open,” he said.
“I’m glad she scored her 1,000th point tonight, we wanted this to be her night,” Clifford added. “Tomorrow night is senior night and we want them to have their night as well.”
Note: The tomorrow night Clifford made reference to was Tuesday evening, when Manor’s three seniors – Baker, Natalia Cruz and Chaz Reed – were honored prior to a non-league game versus Chester.
In that contest, Diescher scored a career-high 36 points to lead the Lady Wildcats to a 51-21 victory.