Wednesday, January 23, 2008

By Cory K. Doviak
NJS.com Editorial Director

Bryan Stankiewicz going in for two of his team,-high 21 points in Old Tappan's 72-60 win over Ramapo on Tuesday night.

OLD TAPPAN -- With a 9-2 record coming into Tuesday night's home game against Ramapo, Old Tappan had already secured its spot in the Bergen County Jamboree. And when the Knights get there they may play a game against an opponent of like skills where the outcome rests on what happens at the free throw line. If that happens, Old Tappan will be ready, or at least it should be. The Knights shot 24 free throws in the fourth quarter and made 15 of them to finish off a 72-60 win over Ramapo on Tuesday night.

Sure the final few minutes dragged on a bit as Ramapo started to give away fouls with just under four minutes left to go in the game, but it was worth the wait for Old Tappan, which now stands at 10-2 on the season. A win over Wayne Hills on Thursday, not an easy task and one of OT’s two losses this season, would put the Knights in position for a top 10 seed in the Jambo, which will be seeded on Friday.

Ramapo's Eric Halejian scored a game-high 24 points, including 17 in the fourth quarter.

“We are hoping to beat Wayne Hills on Thursday afternoon and if we can do that then I think we’d deserve a top 10 seed. Obviously all of the catholic [schools] are going to get the top seeds, but I would hope to be in the top 10,” said Old Tappan head coach Dennis Rossi. “We are about where we thought we could be at this point in the season. We are not an overwhelming team, but we get contributions from a lot of different players depending on the situations we face in any given game.”

The situations that OId Tappan faced on Tuesday including building big leads, giving them back and then building them up again before settling into a free throw contest in the fourth quarter.

After falling behind when Ramapo scored eight straight points to take a 10-5 lead six minutes into the game, Old Tappan turned on the jets. The Golden Knights ran off 19 straight points over the next 4:44. Steve Martinez’s jumper from the baseline put Old Tappan ahead 24-13 with 5:30 le left in the first half before Andrew Weiss’ three-pointer ended the Ramapo drought and got the momentum swinging in the other direction.

“Andrew Weiss hit some big shots for us in the first half,” said Ramapo head coach Joe Delbuono. “He hit some big shots to get us back in the game and give us a shot on the road against a very good team.”

Max Blank's putback closed the third quarter and put Old Tappan up 47-36.

Actually it was three shots, all three-pointers that Weiss made in the second quarter to bring the Green Raiders back. He hit two long bombs on consecutive possessions cap an 11-2 run that brought Ramapo to within 29-25. Ryan Brew’s inside bucket off a feed from Tom Breault kept Ramapo within four points, 31-27, at halftime before Old Tappan made another bid to pull away.

Bryan Stankiewicz made a reverse layup and a free throw for Old Tappan, which scored seven of the first nine points of the third quarter to give his team a 38-29 lead and the Knights pushed the lead back into double digits at 43-32 on Anthony Messina’s three-pointer from the corner two minutes later.

Max Blank’s putback of a missed layup maintained OT’s 11-point lead at the end of the third quarter Chris Brundage’s two free throws 34 seconds into the fourth quarter gave the Knights a seemingly comfortable 49-36 lead. OT was up 55-40 with 5:49 to play in the game before Ramapo, which moved over .500 with a win at Ridgewood on Saturday and needed another one Tuesday to have any shot at spot in the Jambo, made one more run at it behind its leading scorer Eric Halejian.

Andrew Weiss made three second quarter three-pointers to get Ramapo to within 31-27 at the half.

Halejian’s physical strength makes him a tough matchup for opposing guards and he can take a hit and still get into the lane. Despite having a large margin of error and being conscience of not giving away fouls, Old Tappan just couldn’t keep its hands off of Halejian, who went to the free throw line 12 times in the fourth quarter alone and made nine of them. Halejian scored 17 of his game-high 24 points over the final eight minutes as Ramapo drew to within 60-55 with 2:21 left on his steal and pull-up jumper.

After another Old Tappan turnover, Halejian hit one of two from the line as Ramapo crept to within 62-58 with 1:32 to go, but OT made 8 of 10 from the line thereafter to close out the win.

Weiss finished with 11 points, Brew had 10, Breault finished with 7 on the strength of two fourth quarter three-pointers, Peter Garambone made two field goals, including one from long range, Donny Fletcher made a field goal and a free throw for Ramapo, which fell back to 7-7 on the season after knocking off Ridgewood in an independent matchup on Saturday.

“Now we have to be focused. We need a win to get us in position to get into the states, forget about the Jamboree unless we can beat [Northern] Highlands [on Thursday] to give us another quality win,” said Ramapo Delbuono. “We did not match up well with Old Tappan, we tried to focus on Stankiewicz and Blank, but they had other guys step up for them. They are basically a five-guard team and that gave us some trouble. We need to put this one behind us because every game is important moving forward.”

Chris Brundage made 7 of 10 fourth quarter free throws to help OT seal its 10th win of the season.

Stankiewicz led the Knights with 21 points and Brundage made seven of 10 free throws in the fourth quarter on the way to a 13-point night. Blank and Casey Miller each finished with 9 points, Martinez added 7 points, Anthony Messina had 5 points and freshman Shane McLaughlin and Peter Clark each finished with 4 points for Old Tappan.

“It feels great to be 10-2 at this point. We don’t feel like we have overachieved. We feel like we are a very good team and we could really be 12-0. We lost to Wayne Hills and played our worst game of the year and Northern Highlands came down to the last second,” said Blank, one of six seniors on the OId Tappan roster. “We knew Ramapo needed this game and that they were going to play their hardest, but we needed this one too and we have to win our next one if we want to get the Jambo seed we want.”

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