December
21, 2005
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| Corey Raji scored 36 points and pulled down 16 rebounds as Westwood made head coach Frank Connelly's return to his alma mater a successful one. | |
CLIFFSIDE PARK -- In all of his years as a player, a volunteer assistant, a paid assistant and a head coach at Cliffside Park, there was still one place that Frank Connelly had never visited at his alma mater. On Tuesday night, that changed when Connelly got to check out the girls locker room, which doubles as the visitors' dressing room for varsity boys basketball games.
Connelly is now in his first season as Westwood’s head coach and walked into Cliffside Park High School as an opponent for the first time.
“It was pretty difficult. Walking down the driveway with my Westwood team was actually the toughest thing I have ever had to do as a coach,” said Connelly, who was Cliffside’s head coach for seven seasons. “I am glad this game happened early in the season so I could get it off my chest and look forward. It was a very difficult thing coming here.”
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| Xavier Lee led Cliffside Park with 17 points. |
After a warm reception from the home crowd in the pregame introductions, the spotlight switched from Connelly to the players on the floor and Westwood (2-0) broke the game open early in the second quarter on the way to a 68-48 win.
“We loved it, coming in here with the crowd going crazy against us. We knew it was going to be like that and we were looking forward to it,” said Westwood guard Sam Hayes, who hit four first half three pointers and scored 14 of his 19 points in the opening 16 minutes. “We got off to a good start, we hit some shots and that was important for us.”
With his team leading 15-11 after the first quarter, Hayes scored five straight points to start the second when he finished a fastbreak and hit a three, and the Cardinals put together a 9-0 run overall to open their first double digit lead. Corey Raji scored four of his game-high 36 points in the run, and Ricky Henry capped the spurt by hitting a jumper from the corner that put the Cardinals up 26-11.
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| Sam Hayes scored 14 of 19 points in the first half to help Westwood pull away. |
Raji, the 6-6 junior who is on the radar screen of many top Division 1 programs and was playing in front of Seton Hall coach Louis Orr on Tuesday night, showed off his complete arsenal. He scored inside against Cliffside’s 6-9 sophomore Ian Chiles, had two dunks, hit two three-pointers and handed out four assists. He also had a game-high 16 rebounds.
“We wanted to get the ball inside, but when we did that early they were double teaming and we had to kick it out. That left open shooters and we knocked some shots down,” said Raji, who went over the 1,000-point plateau in Westwood’s season opener, a win over River Dell. “The biggest improvement we have this year is the amount of guards we have that can handle the ball and hit shots. It gives us more options.”
In addition to Hayes, Westwood’s backcourt also has Henry, Anthony Gioffre and Anthony Pillari, the point guard who missed all of last season with an ankle injury but is back at full speed and is a solid ball-handler and distributor. On Tuesday, he scored five points and had six assists.
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| Cliffside Park's 6-9 sophomore Ian Chiles is an up and coming force in the middle. |
“The biggest thing for us is that we have to have guys making shots to take some of the pressure off of Corey (Raji),” said Connelly, who saw the opposite happen in the season opener when both his team and River Dell went scoreless for the first 10-plus minutes of the game. “And we have to rebound as a team because we only have one player over 6-feet. Our guards are the key. They have to make shots and box out all the time.”
After trailing by 15 points, 33-18, at the break, Cliffside Park (1-1) made one run at getting back in the game. After a Raji dunk gave Westwood a 42-25 lead, the Red Raiders scored eight straight points to get back within single digits.
Burim Hysenaj and Xavier Lee, who led Cliffside with 17 points, hit back-to-back three-pointers and Lee finished a fastbreak to get the Raiders back to within 42-33 with 3:03 to go in the third quarter. Cliffside then got a defensive stop, but an offensive foul on its next possession and a Raji three from the corner ended the comeback.
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| Point guard Anthony Pillari, back from injury, gives Westwood another offensive option. |
Westwood, which reached the Bergen County quarterfinals and the North 1, Group 2 state sectional semifinals last season, has high hopes for this year. The Cardinals figure to compete with Englewood for the BCSL-American Division title and in the state tournament and have the kind of postseason experience that could lead to a run deeper into the county tournament this time around.
“We are working hard and I am happy about that, but we still have some things to work out,” said Connelly. “I think in the first two games we have done a great job on the defensive end and when you get into pressure situations, if you play defense everything else has a way of falling into place.”
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