Saturday, January 19, 2008

By Cory K. Doviak
NJS.com Editorial Director

Warren Murphy, one of Ridgefield Park's five junior starters, scored a game-high 15 points and assisted on the game-clinching basket for the Scarlets, who improved to 8-3 on the season with a 46-41 win over River Dell.

RIDGEFIELD PARK -- The total was 3,235, but who is counting? As a matter of fact, Ridgefield Park boys basketball coach Chris Gaskin was counting as 3,235 was the number of points that graduated along with the seven seniors who made up the bulk of the roster for the Scarlets team that reached last season's Bergen County Tournament quarterfinals and the North 2, Group 2 state sectional championship game.

For anyone who had not seen Ridgefield Park so far this year, the only familiar face on its sideline was Gaskin himself.

“Because we lost so many kids to graduation, I counted it up it was 3,235 points, I know a lot of people thought we were going to be on the decline,” said Gaskin, who fields an all-junior starting lineup. “But these kids, these five juniors and some of the sophomores, they played AAU all last spring, about 30 games, and they played in all 40 of our games in the summer. They just followed what the previous guys started to do and I think we are starting to build a little bit of a tradition here.”

Matt Connolly scored 7 of his 11 points in the fourth quarter, including the two that drew River Dell to within 43-41 with 1:10 left.

A winning tradition that is as Ridgefield Park held off a late River Dell run on Friday night to post a 46-41 win to improve to 8-3 on the season, 6-2 in the BCSL-American Division and put itself in a solid position for a spot in the Bergen County Jamboree.

And if there has been one staple to Ridgefield Park teams under Gaskin, it has been the ability to get clutch baskets in half court sets. Although this year’s team is probably more athletic than last year’s and more capable of scoring in transition, it also showed it could run a set play late in the fourth quarter of a close game and get two points out of it.

Ridgefield Park led from the beginning and was leading by nine points at 43-34 with 3:45 to go in the fourth quarter. But River Dell, which was intent on slowing the pace all game, was forced to extend into full court pressure and used a couple of turnovers and missed RP layup or two to get back in the game.

Matt Connolly, who had been held in check for the first three quarters, scored five points in a two-minute span that got River Dell back in the game. Connolly’s step-in, pull-up with 1:10 to go in the game capped a 7-0 River Dell spurt and brought the Golden Hawks to within 43-41.

David Urday's layup with 30 seconds left clinched the game for RP.

But a timeout and a patient approach to its most important possession of the game paid off for Ridgefield Park when David Urbay took the ball at the top of the key, passed it to Warren Murphy on the wing and then cut hard to the basket. Murphy led Urbay to the hole with a crisp pass and Urbay made the open layup for bucket that broke River Dell’s comeback charge.

“Urbay turned down a layup probably 15 seconds earlier where I yelled at him, ‘You should have shot that,” said Gaskin. “It was not exactly how we drew it up, but David is an intelligent kid, he knew enough to cut to the basket and he got an uncontested layup.”

Chris Cuecha scored the first basket of the game to give Ridgefield Park the lead that it never gave back and he made a basket off an assist from Marquis McMillian to give his team a 15-9 lead at the end of the first quarter and kick off a 10-0 Scarlets run. McMillian’s three-pointer off the dribble gave RP a 20-9 lead two minutes into the second quarter, but River Dell got back to within 25-19 by halftime.

Tommy May scored all seven of his points on three third quarter jumpshots, including this one 3:20 into the second half.

The third quarter, offensively at least, belonged to the No. 10 as Murphy, who wears No. 10 for Ridgefield Park, and Tommy May, River Dell’s No. 10 played can-you-top-this for a five-minute stretch. Murphy made a steal and a layup to give RP a 27-21 lead 2:08 into the third quarter, and May came down the other end and hit a jumper from the corner to get his team back within four points.

Murphy took the ball to the basket to answer and May came down and hit a three-pointer with a defender pushed right up on him on the left wing. Murphy made two free throws, May made a long two-pointer and River Dell was down by just three points, 31-28, with less than one minute to go in the third quarter.

May scored seven of River Dell’s nine points in the period, but Murphy had 10 of RP’s 12 and Urbay scored on a fall away jumper to close the third quarter with RP in front 35-28.

Murphy played at Paramus Catholic last season, but made the decision to transfer back to his hometown school over the summer and he has been a steadying influence in the Scarlets’ complete overhaul. With all of the graduation losses, Murphy has stepped right in at the point guard and made RP go.

Marquis McMillian scored 7 of his 10 points in the second quarter for RP, which just about locked up its spot in the Jamboree.

“We are just excited right now. A young team with a whole starting five that is going to be back next year, we are just proud of what we are doing. We are a family right now and everybody is working together toward one goal,” said Murphy. “I wasn’t here last year, but these guys have been playing together and I have known them since I was little. Even when I was at Paramus Catholic I wanted to get back out here and play with them.”

And the Scarlets are happy to have him. Murphy scored a game-high 15 points including the two free throws that gave his team the nine-point lead in the fourth quarter and he assisted on Urbay’s game-clinching basket.

“Warren has been a tremendous addition to our program. Without Warren Murphy, we don’t have eight wins,” said Gaskin. “Without him I have no idea who would be handling the ball and we would be lucky if we had two or three wins.”

McMillian scored 7 of his 10 points in the second quarter and Cuecha scored 7 of his 9 in the first period. Urbay finished with 7 points and Andrys Cabrera had a field goal and a free throw as Ridgefield Park’s starting five accounted for 44 of its 46 points. Senior Haz Sohail scored the other two.

Connolly, who played an outstanding fourth quarter by aggressively attacking the basket and BJ Fowler scored 11 points each for River Dell. PJ Belthoff finished with 8 points, May scored all 7 of his points in that third quarter back-and-forth with Murphy and Tommy Belthoff and Tommy Schick each added field goals for the Golden Hawks, who fell to 6-6 on the season and quite likely out of contention for a spot in the Jambo.

FOR MORE PHOTOS FROM THIS GAME OR TO BUY A COLLECTOR'S PRINT OF THIS GAME STORY, PLEASE VISIT 4FeetGrafix.com.