Trenton defense keys run to win over Princeton (PHOTOS/VIDEO)

Holding your opponent scoreless for a quarter probably means you're playing good defense and ought to help you get the win. It worked out that way on Tuesday for the Trenton girls basketball team at Princeton.

On the way to their 53-35 win over the Tigers, the Tornadoes kept Princeton scoreless for nearly 12 minutes and scored 15 straight points to turn around an early five-point deficit.

The win snapped a two-game skid for Trenton and improved the Tornadoes to 11-5 overall and 8-2 in the Colonial Valley Conference.

"(It was) just getting back to our 94 feet of defense," Trenton's first-year coach Marlene Neal said of turning around the game. "We haven't been playing well in the last two games. Our defense wasn't on, so yesterday we had a really good practice and we just constantly preach defense, defense, defense, and when we turned our defense up, they got tired and we just kept pressing on."

Princeton led 11-6 with less than two minutes to go in the first quarter but didn’t score again until less than five minutes were left in the third. In the meantime, Trenton went on a 15-0 run and never led by less than eight once the run was done.

Trenton used a 10-2 fourth-quarter run to get the lead to 20 for the first time and led by as many as 21 points in the game’s final minutes.

"I don't think it was anything that we did differently," Princeton's second-year coach Dave Kosa said of the scoring drought. "I just think that we just didn't make shots. We got open shots. Sometimes during the season, we've gone through tough stretches where we're not scoring the basketball, and that was definitely one of them. It came at a bad time today."

Despite the loss that snapped the Tigers’ three-game winning streak, Princeton still stands at 12-5 overall and 7-3 in the CVC.

“They got us into a full-court game and we did a good job breaking the press, but then we just couldn’t hit the shots,” Kosa said. “I think we missed about three or four layups in the second quarter, a couple of wide-open shots. We were still hanging in there. We were still playing solid ‘D’. I think it was the same in the third quarter as well. We got some open looks we didn’t hit and once we had to go man, it just opened the game up for them.”

The season has revealed that a scoring tandem leads both Princeton and Trenton, and both of those Tornadoes were hitting against the Tigers. N'Dia Stepps led everyone with 22 points and Ishuana Hunter was right behind with 21.

Catherine Dyevich led Princeton with 15 points, but the Tigers were without senior Erin Devine due to injury. Devine averages 11.7 points a game for the Tigers, right there with Dyevich’s 11.6 per-game average.

“Not having Erin today hurt us a lot,” Kosa said. “She’s our leading scorer, so sometimes we rely upon her to knock down some shots, and with her and Catherine, we form a good tandem. We were missing her, but that’s no excuse.”

Hunter has hit the 20-point mark eight times this season and in five straight games, averaging 17.1 points a game. Stepps’ scoring output was her best since a 30-point game against West Windsor-Plainsboro South on Jan. 18 and put her scoring average at 18.3 a game.

“N’Dia and Ishauna, they have to play well in order for us to win. They have to play well not just on the offensive end, but they have to play well on the defensive end,” Neal said. “We like to play fast and get other teams out of their rhythm and do what we do well.”

Stepps has heeded the message on defense.

“Coach told us not to come out the first two minutes of the half lackadaisical, so we had to come out hard, finish strong, watch our fouls,” Stepps said. “Tight defense won the game.”

With Mercer County Tournament time just ahead and the NJSIAA tournament after that, it’s a good time to start trending upward, on both ends of the floor.

“We are better than we were in December and our goal is to get better for February and March,” Neal said. “Whatever seed we get in either tournament, we take it and we run with it.”