Wednesday, January 27, 2010

By Cory K. Doviak
NJS.com Editorial Director

Thomas Messina taking the game-winning shot, the one that gave Old Tappan a 51-49 victory over Mahwah on Tuesday night.

OLD TAPPAN -- The plan was fluid. In a timeout with 17.3 seconds remaining in a time game, Old Tappan head coach Dennis Rossi didn't put the burden on any one player to take the potential game-winning shot. He left all of the options on the table. But when the clock started winding down inside 10 seconds that then toward five, there was no one player who was not going to let the opportunity go to waste.

“I was a little nervous about it because Coach [Dennis Rossi] said he wasn’t calling a play for any one guy. He wanted whoever was open to take it,” said Old Tappan senior Thomas Messina. “But there was no one really open and there was like five seconds left when I got the ball on the wing, so I just drove it in. At first I thought it missed because it hit the front rim.”

Messina’s shot, a hanger in the middle of the lane with a hand in his face, did hit the front rim, and the back rim for that matter, but then it fell through the net for the winning points in a hard-fought 51-49 win over a game Mahwah team on Tuesday night. The win gives Old Tappan an 11-1 (8-0 NBIL) record for the season with one game to go, at Demarest on Thursday, before the Bergen County Jamboree selection committee the tournament on Friday morning. With another win, the Golden Knights are likely to be a top three seed.

Despite foul trouble, Dan DeLoof led Mahwah with 15 points.

“Thursday night is not going to be easy. Demarest is a good team and it is at their place. That is never easy. It’s like Army/Navy when Old Tappan and Demarest play,” said OT head coach Dennis Rossi. “But if we can get out of there with a win I think we will be the three [seed]. I think it will go Teaneck, [St.] Joe’s and then I think we should be next.”

Both Old Tappan and Mahwah reached the Jambo quarterfinals and both came up on the short side of classic tournament games, but both showed on Thursday night that they could get at least that far again. Two Dan Buonocore free throws 3:13 into the game gave Mahwah a 6-5 lead and it stayed in front for the rest of the first half and well beyond.

Walker Larson’s foul line jumper gave the T-Birds a 28-19 lead with 3:02 to go in the second quarter, they led 30-25 at halftime and scored seven of the first nine points of the second half to push the lead to double digits. Dan DeLoof kicked off the third quarter with a three-pointer and ended it with a putback of his own miss to put Mahwah ahead 37-27.

Chris Besserer scored 12 points for Old Tappan, including four big ones in the fourth quarter.

It took Old Tappan only 2:39 to wipe out that lead, however, as the Knights ripped off 10 straight points. Messina scored the first two baskets, one on a take to the basket and the other on a pullup jumper, and Tim Brophy’s jumper from the corner off a kick from Messina tied the game at 37 with 2:52 to play in the third.

The game was tied at 39 heading into the fourth quarter, a test for Old Tappan’s backcourt, which was playing without junior point guard Shane McLaughlin, a 19 point-per-game scorer, for the fourth straight game. McLaughlin is day-to-day with an ankle injury, but Chris Besserer has been more than a place holder in his absence.

Besserer, a junior who started the season playing exclusively on the JV level, has picked up the bulk of McLaughlin’s minutes. Old Tappan has not lost since McLaughlin went down and Besserer scored 12 points on Tuesday night; including two free throws with 5:51 left in the game that gave Old Tappan a 43-41 lead.

Keith Zury's jumper with 3:20 to go started Mahwah's final comeback.

“I just try to take care of the ball, not turn it over a lot and get it to the players we have that can score and play some good ‘D’,” said Besserer, who had six assists. “Shane carries a lot of weight for us and we he went down it kind of forced a lot of other kids to step up. Everybody has picked up their game without Shane and I think we are going to be that much better when he comes back.”

Two free throws and a drive to the basket from the left side by Brophy gave OT a 47-41 lead with 4:20 to go, but Mahwah got off the deck. Keith Zury hit a tough jumper while moving left to right across the lane, Mark Glicini nailed a three-pointer from the corner and, after Buonocore drew a charge with 1:38 to play, he came down the other end and banked in a three-pointer from the top of the key to give Mahwah the lead, 49-47, with 1:16 to go.

But the final minute belonged to Old Tappan as Besserer hit a jumper from the corner to tie the game and Mahwah was called for an offensive foul on the ensuing possession. Rossi called a timeout with 17.3 seconds to go to set up the final play, which wound up going to Messina.

“We said in the timeout that we weren’t going to go with any one designed play. Any of the five kids on the floor could have taken [the last shot]. I trusted all of them to make the decision,” said Rossi. “But Thomas made me look good there as it bounced around the rim there.”

Tim Brophy scored on this drive to give Old Tappan a 47-41 lead with 4:20 to play.

But the game was not quite over as, with fouls to give, Old Tappan used to of them as Mahwah moved up the floor to set up a final play starting with an inbounds pass from the right sideline just inside halfcourt with 1.5 seconds left. Buonocore threw a lob pass that was right on the mark after a back screen freed Larson moving down the left side of the lane. Larson caught it and got a shot off in one motion, but the ball hit the side of the rim and bounced away as Old Tappan held on.

Messina (15 points) was one of four Old Tappan starters to finish in double digits as the Golden Knights got all 51 of their points from their starting five. Besserer finished with 12 and Brophy and Nick Bianco each scored 11. Sam Elias accounted for OT’s other field goal and was also a standout on defense. After allowing 30 points in the first half, OT allowed just 19 over the final 16 minutes.

Mahwah fell to 10-3 on the season and 7-1 inside the NBIL, but is still in line for a top 10 Jambo seed. The T-Birds were led by DeLoof’s 15 points and they got 12 from Bounocore and 11 from Larson.

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