February
19, 2006
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| Peter Brown finished just rebound short of a double-double as Bosco made quick work of Fort Lee in the Jambo semis on Saturday at the Rothman Center. | |
HACKENSACK -- How dominant was Don Bosco in its semifinal Jamboree game against Fort Lee on Saturday night? The starting five was anchored to the bench for the entire fourth quarter, and they still outscored the Bridgemen by a 14-12 margin.
By that point, the Ironmen had throttled their opponent with a third quarter that featured five straight steals that each produced baskets. It was part of an overpowering performance that sends the top seed into Monday night’s championship game.
Bosco made it look all too easy in a 71-39 win, but it will be anything but simple against second seed St. Joseph in the finals, as they try to take their sixth Jamboree title and third in five years (1973, 1978, 1997, 2002, 2004).
“We had a battle two nights ago (a 53-49 win over the Green Knights), and I’m sure Monday night it won’t be any different,” DB head coach Kevin Diverio said.
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| Pedro Burgos scored a team-high 14 points for Fort Lee. |
The battle was over pretty quickly against Fort Lee (17-6), as the Ironmen used an 11-0 run in the last half of the first period to turn a 7-7 tie into an 18-7 lead. Trevor Harris had seven of the points, including the jumper that started the streak and a three-pointer midway through. He had 9 of his 19 points in that first quarter as Fort Lee was overplaying the inside.
“He’s been playing real well the second half of the year,” Diverio related. “He’s really stepped up his game on the offensive end. He’s found his rhythm. He’s making the right plays, taking jump shots when he should be, penetrating when he should be, and he not forcing the issue like he did early on in the year. It’s paying dividends.”
The Ironmen (18-4) extended their lead to 30-16 at halftime, and the teams traded points for the first four minutes of the third quarter. When Maks Reznik hit a three from the right baseline, the Bridgemen were down 40-25 with 4:17 to go.
That would be their last points until 26.5 seconds were left on the third quarter clock and their last field goal for over six minutes.
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| Bosco will face St. Joseph on Monday night in a rematch of a regular season game earlier this week and last year's Jambo final. |
It wasn’t so much poor shooting as not even being able to get the ball across halfcourt. Bosco went on a 15-0 run that began with a couple of putback baskets and finished with five straight steals and baskets. Harris had the first two, and it was happening so quick, Fort Lee head coach John Ziemba couldn’t even call time out.
“We really picked it up in the second half, and everything was keyed off the defense,” Diverio remarked. “For us to be in games, we have to play good defense.”
“Basically, they didn’t guard (Ilja) Dejanovic and played five on four,” Ziemba noted, “We didn’t space the ball, we wanted to dribble too much.”
With a 57-27 lead heading into the fourth quarter, Diverio chose to rest his starters for Monday night. The Bridgemen kept their starters in for the first six minutes of the fourth before subbing them out with 2:04 to go.
Fort Lee’s Pedro Burgos had a rough shooting night, hitting only 2 of 13 overall and 1 of 9 from three-point range. He did hit 9 of 12 free throws for a team-high 14 points, but he rarely had an open look.
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| Ilja Dejanovic (right) had 8 rebounds and 3 assists for Fort Lee. |
“We ended up shooting too fast, and that’s been our problem against that kind of defense all year,” Ziemba recounted. “They’re bigger, faster and stronger, and the quick shot resulted in easy baskets for them and it got away from us. They scored off transition and penetration against our zone.”
The Bridgemen hit 12 of 39 field goals (3 of 13 threes) and were 12 of 23 at the foul line. Dejanovic had 8 rebounds and 3 assists despite not scoring, and Gerald Soriano managed 7 points and 7 rebounds.
The Ironmen, who hit 12 of 19 shots in the third period blitz, finished 28 of 57 from the field (3 of 9 threes) and 12 of 14 at the line. Pete Brown had 11 points and 9 rebounds and Georgio Milligan had 11 points and 3 steals. Forward Connor Cornine, the catalyst of Bosco’s quarterfinal win, had 3 steals and 3 assists, while Harris had 4 assists.
FOR MORE PHOTOS OF THIS GAME OR TO BUY A COLLECTOR'S PRINT OF THIS GAME STORY, PLEASE VISIT 4FeetGrafix.com.
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