Tuesday, January 26, 2010

By Cory K. Doviak
NJS.com Editorial Director

Donnie Fletcher scored 13 points for Ramapo, which got back to .500 and kept its Jambo hopes alive with a 70-54 win over Clifton on Monday night.

FRANKLIN LAKES -- Having lost five of its first six games of the season, the Ramapo boys basketball team had pretty much wiped out any margin of error it had in terms of qualifying for the Bergen County Jamboree. The .650 winning percentage needed for automatic entry was all but by the boards and the Green Raiders' only remaining option was to pile up some quality wins and hope for an at large bid as a school with a history of success in the tournament.

But with three straight wins and four in its last five games heading into Monday night’s independent matchup against Clifton, Ramapo still had a shot at the Jambo.

“Clifton is a Group 4 team and we knew if we could beat them that it would be good for our argument to get into the county tournament,” said Ramapo’s RJ Voorman. “We have a lot of motivation to make the counties and states. At the beginning of the season we might have taken it a little for granted, but I think we are more focused and we have been putting in a lot of extra effort.”

Dino Rajzetovic scored 9 points for Clifton.

The effort paid off as Ramapo pulled away midway through the second quarter on the way to a 70-54 win over Clifton. That makes it five straight wins for the Raiders and a record that is back at .500 with two games left before the Jambo cutoff. With Indian Hills on Tuesday and Bergenfield on Thursday, Ramapo has a chance to present the committee with a resume that includes an 8-6 record and a six-game winning streak.

“First of all I appreciate Clifton finding the time to get up here to play us and to my administration for allowing us to play the extra game. And this was a big win for us. Most people gave us up for dead when we were 1-5, but now we have a four game win streak and we are 6-6 and we still have a chance,” said Ramapo head coach Joe DelBuono. “If we can win tomorrow [against Indian Hills], and that is no given, it would be our fourth quality win going into the Bergenfield game. I would think that if we could get to 8-6 with a six-game winning streak, we could make a good argument for getting into the Jambo.”

Against Clifton, Ramapo scored the last four points of the first quarter to move out to an 18-11 lead and then opened the second quarter with a 13-3 run that all but put the game away. Mike Berardo hit a three-pointer, Voorman made a free throw and Donnie Fletcher completed a conventional three-point play to put the Green Raiders up 31-14 with 4:14 to go in the first half.

Warren Hartmann finished with 13 points for Ramapo.

The lead swelled to 20 by the intermission when Matt Bunting scored off the offensive glass and Warren Hartmann made a three from the corner to push the Raiders’ advantage to 38-18 heading into the locker room.

“We were really hyped up because we need these last three wins if we want to make it to the counties and the states and now we are .500. Indian Hills tomorrow is going to be huge, but we had to get his one first,” said Hartmann. “Our start to the season really set us back, but I think it made us a better team coming out of that. We’ve practiced harder and we are definitely looking forward to how far we can go this year.”

For Clifton, it’s not a matter of how far it can go this season, but how it can use the lessons it is learning. The Mustangs took the game on a Monday night against Ramapo not because it had nothing to lose, but with the idea that putting itself in competitive situations as often as possible means there is always something to gain in terms of experience.

“We work hard all the time, we just don’t always play smart. It’s a process and our most difficult task this year has been translating what we do in practice and bringing it into the game. Turnovers have just killed us all year and rebounding has killed us,” said Clifton head coach Tommie Patterson, whose team fell to 2-11 with the loss. “We are not going to make the states and every team makes our [Passaic] county tournament because we only have 17 teams, so I am just trying to get our kids as many games as possible and just let them play.”

Mike Berardo and the rest of Ramapo's seniors are aiming for a Jambo spot.

Mohammed Niwash led Clifton with 12 points and Pete Vasil, Jr. scored 8 of his 11 in the second half. Dino Rajzetovic finished with 8 and Mandi Masri and Nick Lavender each added 6 for the Mustangs.

Bunting led Ramapo with a game-high 14 points and Hartmann and Fletcher each had 13 for the Green Raiders, who had 10 different players crack the scoring column. Tyler Ward had 6, Berardo, Voorman and Henry Borgeson all had 5, Adam Menner and TJ Hunt each added 4.

Ramapo is one of 33 teams to apply for entry into the Jambo, but in reality this week is a series of three do-or-die situations. With the first one out of the way, the Green Raiders can focus on Indian Hills, their archrival and sister school that could stamp its own ticket with a win on Tuesday.

“We knew we had to win all three to stand a chance. This is a critical week,” said Bunting, a member of Ramapo’s state championship football team that played well into December. “We usually have two or three weeks to get into basketball, but playing that late in football might have slowed us down a little. But now we are back to even for the season and we have Indian Hills and Bergenfield, two very good teams, coming up. We know what we have to do…we have to win them both.”

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