PRINCETON JCT. — Scoring her 1,000th point would not have been as satisfying to Ava Aldarelli if her Robbinsville varsity girls’ basketball team had not won. That was one of the reasons this 5-foot-7 junior guard/forward wanted to get her milestone out of the way as quickly as possible Saturday at West Windsor-Plainsboro High South. Lucky for the Ravens, she did because the fight the Pirates put up kept the game in doubt until the final seconds when R’ville escaped with a 37-36 victory. Aldarelli entered the game needing eight points to reach 1,000 for her career. She accomplished that with 1:18 left in the first quarter when she completed a three-point play with a foul shot to tie the game, 11-11. It was the second time that stanza the visitors had rallied to tie the game before taking the lead in the second quarter. “It means a lot to me to get my 1,000th point, but I wanted to focus on getting the win,” Aldarelli said. “That’s why it was nice to get it out of the way in the first quarter. I would have been very disappointed if we lost this game.” The lead grew to five points, then head coach Zak Kumor’s WW-P South squad fought back to tie the game, 22-22, when 5-6 senior guard Rachel Joseph hit a 3-point field goal with 2:46 left in the third quarter. Joseph agreed with Aldarelli’s earlier assessment. “It was good to get that (milestone) out of the way, so we could all just focus in,” said Joseph, who tied 5-10 junior forward Sophia Latif Estafan for the Pirates’ scoring lead with nine points. “We knew what the goal was. Even with Sophia in foul trouble, we have enough talent on this team to adjust on the fly. We’re able to work around it.” But Aldarelli responded to Joseph’s trey by hitting a 3-pointer of her own, then converting an old-fashioned three-point play to give the 9-6 Ravens their biggest lead, 28-22, with 9:43 left in the game. That was important because Aldarelli, who led all scorers with 20 points, did not score again in the fourth quarter. Instead, she focused on grabbing six of her 14 rebounds (another game high) to keep the visitors in the lead. Still, the 32-minute game that saw 32 fouls called went down to the final seconds after Latif Estafan put in a layup with 58.5 seconds left to draw the home team within a point. It still looked like the 6-9 Pirates were going to rob Aldarelli’s team of the win when 5-2 junior guard Deana Hu stole a pass with 11 seconds to go. Concern grew when Ravens’ 5-3 sophomore guard Alyson Klinger was called for a non-shooting foul with 2.2 seconds left. But when WW-P South went to inbounds after a timeout, Klinger came up with a steal that ran out the clock. “We never know what’s going to happen because we’re really young,” Aldarelli said. “But if you work at it, you can get there. With the game on the line, we just came together. We really do pull for each other.” “The best part about Ava is that she cared more about getting the win than getting her points,” Robbinsville head coach Justin Schmid said. “I always wanted to be a varsity basketball coach, and I’m so blessed to have a player like her to start my career.” As the only girl in the game to score in double digits, Aldarelli raised her career point total to 1,012. ROBBINSVILLE (37) GBottoni 2-0-5, Aldarelli 6-6-20, Singh 1-1-3, Pierini 1-0-2, Klinger 0-0-0, Godwin 2-1-5, Griffin 1-0-2. Totals — 13-8-37. WW-P SOUTH (36) EBlack 2-0-5, Holden 2-2-7, Joseph 3-2-9, Latif Estafan 3-3-9, Hu 0-0-0, Borusu 0-0-0, Sirmans 3-0-6. Totals — 13-7-36. Robbinsville (9-6)                    11    9      8      9    —    37 WW-P South (6-9)                   13    3    10    10    —    36 3-point goals — Bottoni, Aldarelli 2 (R), EBlack, Holden, Joseph (WWS).