Saturday, February 13, 2010

By Cory K. Doviak
NJS.com Editorial Director

Kamil Rutkowski finished with 28 points and 18 rebounds for Garfield, which improved to 12-6 with a 44-42 win at River Dell on Friday.

ORADELL -- Up by eight points with just over one minute to play in its independent matchup against River Dell on Friday night, Garfield looked like it had the game all locked up. The Boilermakers, short one starter and with just three players dressed on the bench, were in pretty good shape, both in terms of stamina and game situation. But that didn't keep head coach Chris Annibal from sweating out the game's final 73 seconds.

“Any time you play a River Dell team coach by Brian Long, especially in their gym, you expect it to come down to the last possession. Even though we were up 8, I didn’t think it was over,” said Annibal. “We got off to lead early and maybe our kids thought it was going to be an easy night, but I didn’t expect that to happen against River Dell.”

Annibal was spot on. Both ends of the one-and-one that Kamil Rutkowski scored to give him the last of his game-high 28 points gave Garfield its eight point lead with 1:13 to play in the game, but they were also the last points the Boilermakers scored in the game and they had to hold on for dear life.

Kyle King's buzzer-beating layup brought River Dell to within one point, 22-21, at halftime.

Alex Coppola’s only six points of the game came on consecutive three-pointers in a 39-second span to get River Dell back to within two points and the Golden Hawks had two tries to tie or take the lead in the final 25 seconds, but Jabbar Drakeford’s block and steal on the final sequence of the game finally sealed Garfield’s 44-42 victory in Oradell.

Drakeford, Garfield’s sophomore guard, whose turnover led to Coppola’s second three-pointer, was looking for the chance to make up for the mistake and he got it when it was his man who was tabbed to take the final shot.

“I wanted to make up for that turnover and I am happy that I got the chance to do it, but I didn’t think it would be a blocked shot. I probably average about .1 blocked shots a game,” said Drakeford with a laugh. “But I’ll take it. A defensive stop for me is more important than making a basket. I love to play defense and they had the ball last, so it worked out.”

Both teams have had successful seasons to this point. Both earned spots in the Bergen County Jamboree, both won their first round games and both were eliminated in the Round of 16 last Sunday. But it has been an up-and-down week for River Dell, which handed Tenafly only its second league loss in the BCSL-American Division on Tuesday, only to drop a 22-point decision to Westwood on Thursday night.

Sophomore Jabbar Drakeford blocked the game's last shot to seal the win for Garfield.

And it was an up-and-down game for the Hawks on Friday, who got a three-pointer from Brian Long for the game’s first points, then saw Garfield run off the next 13 in a row to take a double digit lead just 5:40 into the game. Although River Dell never regained the lead, it never went away, either, and drew to within a single point at halftime, 22-21, when Kyle King put back a missed shot at the buzzer.

“They are a tough team to play against because they want to control the pace so much. They like to play games in the 30s and we want to play 60-point games,” said Drakeford. “We wanted to push the tempo as much as we could, but they didn’t let us do it as much as we wanted to.”

What River Dell couldn’t do effectively was stop Rutkowski, the senior 1,000-point scorer whose game from the foul line and in is fun to watch and tough to defend. Normally teamed with senior Felipe Fraga up front, Rutkowski was a solo act on Friday because Fraga was away at a previously scheduled AAU volleyball tournament. Rutkowski scored well more than half of his team’s points and pulled down well more than half of his team’s rebounds (18). His basket inside to start the fourth quarter gave his team a 35-29 lead.

Tommy May scored a team-high 16 points for River Dell.

“We were without Fraga tonight, so I knew I had to step up,” said Rutkowski, who scored 18 points in the second half, 9 each in the third and fourth quarters. “We got kinda lucky because they couldn’t hit a shot in the first three quarters and we built up just enough lead. They made some shots in the fourth quarter, but we had just enough.”

Garfield could have made it easier on itself in the final seconds, but its last two possessions ended in an obvious travel that came on a wide open fastbreak and the missed front end of a one-and-one. River Dell could have pulled out a win, but saw its last two possessions result in a stolen entry pass and the blocked final attempt that ended the game.

Garfield is in a three-way race for a league title and will be back at full strength when Fraga returns as junior point guard Richie Colon, who missed the Jambo loss to Don Bosco Prep with an ankle injury, was in the lineup against River Dell, although not exactly 100 percent. He did hit three three-pointers to account for all 9 of his points in support of the 28 from Rutkowski.

“Our offense was not where I would have liked it tonight, but we won this game with our defense. We had too many turnovers and too many missed shots or we might have made it a little easier on ourselves in the final minute,” said Annibal. “But this is a nice win for us, a good win over a Jambo team on the road. We’ll take it.”

Tommy May lead River Dell with 16 points and was the only Hawk to finish in double figures. King Long and Coppolla all finished with 6 points.

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