High School Basketball: Lurano Leads Holy Cross' Comeback Wednesday, December 28, 2005 By Susan Hall SJSports Special Correspondent While many people were enjoying the holidays by extending their mini vacation through the New Years, area high schools were hard at work participating in one of the many basketball tournaments during the break. The Moorestown Invitational was one of those schools serving as a host allowing Holy Cross and Haddon Township to compete on the basketball court. The Lancers would start this game off slowly by only scoring eight first half points against Haddon Township. Christi Lurano would lead the Lancers second half rally and eventually send this game into two overtime periods. Holy Cross would outscore the Lady Hawks by four points in double overtime and defeat Township by a 49-45 margin. Basketball season doesn’t wait for the New Year to begin in order to fall in nicely with the twelve month schedule. Players have been preparing for quite some time as many have been waiting with anticipation of the start of a new season. The holiday tournament gives several teams the opportunity to compete against schools they would normal not see during their regular season schedule. Moorestown and Riverside would be the other two teams participating in this year’s Moorestown Invitational. Haddon Township was one of those teams with high expectations as their starting lineup would rely on Nora Murphy and Chrissy Barnett’s experience to guide them throughout the season. The Lady Hawks would jump out to an eight point lead that swelled to a 22-8 advantage at halftime. But the momentum swung in the favor of the Lancers during the second half as Holy Cross would outscore the Hawks 26-12 to send this game into overtime. Both teams matched basket for basket during the first overtime session leaving this game to be determined during the next five minute interval. With the score tied at 42 apiece, the Lancers’ defense would hold Township to only one basket to win this semi-final game. Christi Lurano led all scorers with 15 points and Courtney Ciampi added 12 points for Holy Cross. Haddon Township’s Chrissy Barnett dropped in 13 points while Colleen Greway and Nora Murphy both scored 12 points apiece for the Hawks. Photos by Hugh Tsung