Julia Duggan helped lead the Ocean City High School girls basketball team to a championship Thursday night.
Duggan a junior forward who recently surpassed 1,000 career points, scored seven of her team-high 15 points in the fourth quarter to lead the Raiders to a come-from-behind 35-31 victory over Middle Township.
The win clinches the Cape-Atlantic National Conference title for the Raiders, and earns the team one of the top three seeds for the upcoming CAL Tournament, which begins late next week.
Trailing 29-24 at the start of the final period, Ocean City outscored Middle 11-2 to overcome the deficit and claim the victory.
Ocean City improved to 17-3 overall, 11-1 in conference games with the victory, while Middle fell to 15-4, 10-1. Middle can tie the Raiders’ conference record with a win in its final conference game on Monday against Lower Cape May, but the Raiders hold the tiebreaker over the Lady Panthers.
Duggan gave her team the lead for good on basket off a feed from Natalie Landi with a little over a minute to play.
Reilly Larkin, who added 12 points for Ocean City, sealed her team’s win by making a pair of free throws with 21.9 seconds remaining to extend a two-point lead to four.
Middle, which has also qualified for the CAL Tournament, got a game-high 19 points from Lauryn Fields.
Middle played the game without top rebounder and second-leading scorer Kristina Startare, who has missed a handful of recent games with an ankle injury.
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