High school girl outdoes Kobe -- and Wilt
BY ADAM RONIS
STAFF WRITER
February 2, 2006, 8:37 AM EST
One night after all eyes were on Kobe Bryant at Madison Square Garden to see if he could break Wilt Chamberlain's 100-point record, a high school senior named Epiphanny Prince did it a little farther downtown.
Prince, who will play at Rutgers next season, set a national high school girls basketball record with 113 points in host Murry Bergtraum's 137-32 win over Brandeis yesterday.
Prince, a 5-9 senior guard, made 54 of 60 shots. Prince broke the record of Riverside Poly's Cheryl Miller, who scored 105 points for the California school in 1982.
"It's just amazing to me," Prince told SI.com. "My best game had been 55 points in eighth grade."
"I was telling some college coaches before the game that in the [Public School Athletic League] the competition isn't that great, and that I thought I might get bored," Prince said. "They told me to keep playing hard and doing my best."
Bergtraum coach Ed Grezinsky said, "When I was told she had 58 points at the half, I thought she had a chance to do something special."
Prince scored 38 points in the first quarter, 20 in the second, 25 in the third and 30 in the fourth.
"After I scored 29 points in the first quarter, I didn't think much of it," Prince told The Associated Press by phone Wednesday night. "After I had 58 points at the half, and especially after having in the 80s after the third quarter, I just decided to go for it.
"It was exciting," Grezinsky said. "As a coach, you don't have many opportunities to see an all-time national record be broken."
However, Brandeis coach Vera Springer didn't share the same excitement, according to a New York Post report.
"It's nothing against Epiphanny," Springer told the newspaper. "I have great admiration for her. This was an adult decision. Why would you do this against a team like ours?"
Springer said her team, which has won only four league games this season, stopped playing defense in the second half.
"She didn't earn this," Springer told the Post. "It was like picking on a handicapped person."
Prince, who passed the 2,000-point mark for her career last month, averages 38 points in league play.
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