MONTCLAIR- Alisa Wiggins has enjoyed success both as a player and as a young coach and now as she continues in the midst of her rookie season back home guiding her high school alma mater, the first-year Montclair coach is well aware that progress along the way will also include some ups and downs.
The Mounties, who absorbed recent setbacks to West Essex and Millburn which followed a solid independent road win at Summit, are basically a young squad with four sophomores and a freshman in the rotation.
“We have a heavy sophomore team and generally some inexperience when it comes to varsity basketball so there are going to be growing pains as they get acclimated to the system, but I really like this group of girls, their work ethic and their dedication to learn more,” said the 2025 Hudson County Interscholastic Athletic League Coach of the Year at BelovED Charter in Jersey City. “That inexperience will show up at times, like in the first half of our game at West Essex (31-10 halftime deficit), but we finished strong in that one (17-8 edge in fourth quarter in a 50-32 setback) and the positives signs continue to be there!”
Montclair finished 14-12 last winter and 7-3 in the Super Essex Conference-Colonial Division and have moved up to the SEC-Liberty this season. That team was led by a dominant scorer in Savannah Seawell, who averaged 20.1 points per game and has since graduated.
There are two seniors on the roster, both of whom saw significant action last winter, in valuable forwards Anna O’Keefe and Carla Osborne. O’Keefe was the team’s second-leading scorer a year ago (8.3 ppg) while Osborne is strong on backboards and is a fine all-around athlete who also excelled for the Mounties’ girls soccer team in the fall.
“Anna and Carla are great competitors and are the voice of our team,” said Wiggins, who was a standout basketball and soccer player during her own Mounties scholastic career. “Anna has a good outside shot while Carla is relentless on the inside and really does a great job off the glass.
“The rest of the team is comprised of underclassmen, and some real talented young players as well, and they’re continuing to get better, but it takes time and we’re OK with that as long as the effort continues to be there every day.”
Sophomores Taryn Gilbert and Sofia Portelli along with freshman Angel Stinson have started for the Mounties with other youngsters including juniors Zoe Todd and Mattie Rajah Mandery and sophomore Orli Dinour providing depth in the rotation.
Portelli played solid varsity minutes as a freshman last season averaging 5.3 ppg and displaying much potential as a scorer and playmaker to watch in the future.
“Sofia can score the ball and can also play point guard and we’re trying to help her develop a scorer’s mentality because she has that potential, as does Taryn and Angel has some real nice skills as a freshman,” said Wiggins. “Those are three young guards who can do so much and will help combine with our other girls to help us play at the faster pace that we want to have while looking to speed up the game and get up more attempts on the goal.”
The 26-year-old Wiggins, who played collegiately at both Kansas State (for three seasons) and then the University of Northern Colorado, has taken the reins of a Montclair program which has had three straight winning season while playing in the SEC’s third division, the Colonial, and has had its share of solid seasons through the years, highlighted by three Essex County Tournament runner-up finishers in 2012 and also in 2014 and 2015 when she was a big part of the program then headed by Coach Bianca Brown and then Paul Palek during her senior year.
Ed Connell, who resigned this past spring, had been the Mountie girls’ head coach for the previous five seasons and is now an assistant at nearby Montclair Kimberley Academy where he is also on the Cougars’ football coaching staff.
“I’m super excited to be back in the town and at the school where it all started for me,” said Wiggins. “I am working toward restoring the tradition of girls basketball at Montclair High School, while always looking to build connections with our players.”
A 2017 MHS graduate and career 1,000-point scorer with the Mounties, Wiggins averaged 18 points per game during her senior high school season. As a freshman she was a member of the varsity squad that finished 20-7 overall, reaching the ECT championship game vs. Shabazz and also a berth in the North 1, Group 4 state sectional final where the Mounties were edged by Paterson Eastside, 44-43.
She was also a member of the Mounties’ first and still only overall Group 4 state championship girls soccer team in 2014 directed by present head coach Rob McOmish who returned to guide the program this past fall after a few seasons working at the college level.
She helped raise the level of play during her two seasons coaching the BelovED Charter Owls as the team went from a 8-15 record her first season at the helm to finishing a solid 16-8 overall in the 2024-2025 season, including a perfect 8-0 mark in the Patriot Division of the (HCIAL).
For her efforts, Wiggins was named the 2024-2025 HCIAL Coach of the Year. BelovED Charter won a first-round game in the NJSIAA North 2, Group 1 state tournament, defeating Bard, 42-29, before seeing its season end with a setback to perennial state sectional title contender University in the N2G1 quarterfinals.
Wiggins has also spent time as an AAU coach, including most recently with United while directing the successful travel program’s 17-U national team.
She had also coached previously with the Peak Academy AAU program.
Montclair program and the school where she made a name for herself as a scholastic athlete is thrilled to have her return to the Essex County school.
“I’m excited to welcome back Coach Alisa Wiggins to Montclair High School where she was a state champion as a soccer star and a great basketball player,” said Montclair High Athletic Director Matt Belford. “She is a record holder in various categories for the Mounties basketball program and is ready to lead our program to new heights.
“What I’m most excited about is her vision about building the program and developing a connection between the community youth programs and the high school in order to build for the future and help us to one day be a perennial championship program.”
Montclair will take a 2-2 overall record into the Charlie Dolan Holiday Tournament at Kearny beginning with a game vs. Colonia, 9 a.m., Monday (Dec. 29), before taking on the host Kearny Kardinals on Tuesday, Dec. 30.
NOTES- Serving as assistant coaches for Wiggins this season are Darrell Quocko, Shaq Simms and former Mounties standout athlete Gabby Isola…Among Wiggins’ mentors in her development as a player and coach are her former Montclair High coach Bianca Brown and former, fellow Peak Academy coach Tamika Dixon, who is the ex-University of Kansas star and former WNBA women’s professional basketball player, who is now the head girls hoops coach at her alma mater, Linden High School…Wiggins spent three years at Kansas State and then finished up her collegiate career at Northern Colorado located in the town of Greeley…Wiggins’ mom, Shirlese McKinley, has directed the Premier Dance Theater at 180 Bloomfield Ave. in Montclair for the past 34 years…Her older brothers Jordan (Cheyney State University) and James Wiggins (Centenary College) both played basketball for Montclair High before also playing at the college level…the 1994-95 Mounties girls basketball team coached by Jerry Citro advanced to the program's first and still only overall Group 4 final before losing to Absegami in the championship game played at Toms River North High School. That terrific Mounties team included standout players led by backcourt performers Bianca Brown's younger sister Rayna Brown and also the current West Orange head girls basketball coach Caniece Montague Williams.
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