LAWRENCE TWP. — Things are starting to swing in favor of the Lawrence High varsity girls’ basketball team. It has been 12 years since the Cardinals have made it to the championship game of the John Molinelli Holiday Classic. Friday they made their return by defeating Pemberton, 46-39, in the first round. It was Lawrence’s first win of the 2024-25 season, taking the team a place it has not been since the 2012-13 school year. Head coach Dana Williams’ 1-3 squad will now play a tall Hunterdon Central team in Saturday’s noon final. The 1-3 Red Devils topped Hopewell Valley, 49-16, Friday to join the home team in this year’s 20th annual Molinelli Holiday Classic championship game. During a slow start this winter, Lawrence, which only has two seniors, has been growing along with its young cast. Friday two of its youngest players were among the game’s top scorers as 5-foot-11 freshman guard/forward K.J. Williams led the Cardinals with 13 points, 13 rebounds and five steals, plus a blocked shot (which was second on the team behind 5-7 senior forward Emma Dobkin’s two blocks); while 5-5 freshman guard Suhaani Swaroop connected on three 3-point field goals for nine points. “It’s a lot different from middle school,” said Williams, who tied for the game high in points with Hornets’ 5-5 freshman Jaylonnie Hilton, who also had 13 points. “I know, after our scrimmages, my first varsity game was very different, especially running-wise.” Williams, who can shoot with either hand and towers over many other 14-year-olds, is up for the challenge of staying fit and helping bring Lawrence girls’ basketball back into the limelight. For now, it is all about improvement for her and her teammates. “We can’t usually break the press,” Williams said. “We’d been having trouble up top, but today we did a much better job with that. The steals I came up with, and the encouragement I got from my teammates, helped. With work, it will lead to more wins.” The necessary work was still evident as the lead changed hands four times in the first quarter before sophomore guard Kayla Madison hit two buckets in the final 50 seconds to put the home team up, 11-6. The second stanza was still a struggle before the Cardinals opened their 20-14 halftime lead by outscoring Pemberton, 17-9, in the third quarter. Williams had four points and Swaroop hit a pair of treys during that run to push Lawrence’s lead to 37-21. While both teams struggled at the charity stripe (where the Hornets missed 11 and the Cardinals missed seven), the visitors ran off the first eight points of the fourth quarter to tighten the gap to 37-29 with 6:35 left. Hilton scored five in the final stanza to help her club to trim the margin to 44-37 with 1:25 to play, yet they could get no closer despite outscoring the home team, 16-9, down the stretch. “I still need to work on my shots and my shooting in general,” Williams said. “As a team, we need to work on running our offense and staying calm on the ball.” Such continued improvement by Lawrence would make things rather interesting in the revamped Colonial Valley Conference Valley Division in 2025. PEMBERTON (39) Hilton 7-1-15, Downes 0-1-1, Sims 0-0-0, Sheffield Washington 3-2-8, Graham 1-1-3, Sanders 0-0-0, Holt 0-0-0, Idom 0-0-0, Thomas 3-1-7, TWilliams 0-0-0, Gadsen 0-0-0, McKinney 2-1-5. Totals — 16-7-39. LAWRENCE (46) Dobkin 0-1-1, McMahon 3-0-6, Orashen 2-0-4, Carter 1-1-3, Cohen 1-0-3, Walter 0-0-0, Madison 2-0-4, Space 1-0-3, KWilliams 5-3-13, Swaroop 3-0-9. Totals — 18-5-46. Pemberton (0-4)                     6    8      9    16    —    39 Lawrence (1-3)                     11    9    17      9    —    46 3-point goals — Cohen, Space, Swaroop 3 (L). HUNTERDON CENTRAL 49, HOPEWELL VALLEY 16 LAWRENCE TWP. — Paige Ritter’s eight points accounted for half of the Bulldogs’ output in this opening-round loss to the Red Devils in John Molinelli Holiday Classic play earlier yesterday. Liz Kellogg and Bethany Ramos topped all scorers with 14 and 11 points, respectively. HOPEWELL VALLEY (16) Reinhart 1-0-2, DRoss 1-0-2, Nunnally 2-0-4, Ritter 2-4-8, MacQueen 0-0-0, Kurian 0-0-0, Pagnotta 0-0-0, Arora 0-0-0, Eugene 0-0-0, Ryan 0-0-0. Totals — 6-4-16. HUNTERDON CENTRAL (49) Costantini 2-0-5, Coplan 2-0-4, O’Leary 0-1-1, Schwartz 3-0-6, Dvoor 1-0-2, Ramos 5-0-11, Duran 1-3-6, Kellogg 7-0-14. Totals — 21-4-49. Hopewell Valley (1-5)                  4      4      4    4    —    16 HunterdonCentral(1-3)                9    15    16    9    —    49 3-point goals — Costantini, Ramos, Duran (HC).