Sunday, February 21, 2010

By Cory K. Doviak
NJS.com Editorial Director

Sean McGuire scored all 5 of his points from the free throw line in the fourth quarter to help Bergen Catholic hold off Don Bosco Prep, 53-50, in the Jambo semis.

HACKENSACK – The jump ball that starts any high school basketball is usually just overlooked subtlety, a throw back to the old days when they were omnipresent as the deciding factor on simultaneous possession that took place during the course of a game. Nowadays, barring overtime, the jump ball is a mere formality. One team gains possession, the other gets the possession arrow and the game moves on from there. But it meant something else on Saturday night in the semifinals of the Bergen County Jamboree.

Bergen Catholic won the tap; Maurice Grant stormed down the court, pulled up and made a short jump shot just four seconds into the game. There were still 31 minutes and 56 seconds left to play, but Bergen Catholic, the No. 7 seed, was on the board and already in an offensive flow, an important development for a team not known as a scoring juggernaut and one that scored just 27 points in its quarterfinal upset of defending champion Teaneck in last weekend’s quarterfinal round.

“It is always nice to make your first shot for the team and for the individual because you do worry about coming out in this environment and a minute or two goes by and all of a sudden you start wondering what is going on,” said Bergen Catholic head coach Joe Dionisio. “We didn’t have to face that.”

Bosco's Vaughn Gray converted a three-point play with 1:16 to go that tied the game at 48.

Bergen Catholic was facing a tough opponent in Don Bosco Prep, a program that has won four of the last six Jamboree titles, and one that knocked off third-seeded N/V Old Tappan in the quarterfinals. In a game where every point was bound to be tough to come by, it was a personal 5-0 run by BC’s Eric Flanagan midway through the second quarter that got the Crusaders heading in the right direction.

Flanagan’s three-pointer with 4:22 left in the first half tied the game and his pull-up jumper 1:05 later gave Bergen Catholic a working lead and clutch free throw shooting down the stretch put the lock on the Crusaders’ 53-50 win at the Rothman Center on the campus of Farleigh Dickinson University. BC will get a chance to tie Hackensack for the most Jambo titles all time (9) when it plays No. 4 Paramus Catholic in the county final on Monday night in a 7:00 p.m. start also at the Rothman Center.

“We are not a pretty basketball team so maybe when people watch us play they leave thinking that we are not very good,” said Dionisio, whose team improved to 15-9 on the season. “But you are going to have to fight to score against us, you are going to have to fight for rebounds, we step in, we get on the ground for loose balls and when you put that kind of effort on the floor you are going to have a chance to win.”

And it looked like that win might come somewhat easy when Mark Richards scored three straight points late in the third quarter to give Bergen Catholic and 11-point lead, its largest lead of the game, before settling for a 42-33 lead heading into the fourth quarter. But Richards basket inside with 1:18 left in the third quarter turned out to be the Crusaders’ final field goal of the game and they would have to earn win from the line as Bosco started extending the game early in the fourth and started to chip away.

Eric Flangan's personal 5-0 run midway through the second quarter gave BC a lead that it held deep into the fourth .

Bergen was leading 46-37 with 5:09 to play and had a chance to extend it, but an empty trip on a one-and one opportunity left the door open a crack for a Bosco comeback and the Ironmen almost stepped all the way through.

Bosco scored the next eight points and Vaughn Gray’s basket on a second offensive rebound brought the Ironmen to within 46-45 with 1:45 left and they finally got even on Gray’s three-point play with 1:16 left.

That was the time still showing on the clock when Bosco was whistled for a foul on the ensuing inbounds pass that put BC point guard Sean McGuire on the line. McGuire made both to put BC back in front and he made 5 of 6 from the line in the fourth quarter.

“This is a senior oriented team. We have Doug Rigg going off to play football next year, I am going off to play lacrosse next year, so we really wanted to get this win and kind of make our statement on the school and get a county championship,” said McGuire. “We were here to play and we were excited about the opportunity and we had to close it out.

Gary Nova had two of Bosco's four three-pointers.

Bergen Catholic was 20 of 28 from the free throw line in the game, 11 of 15 from the stripe in the fourth quarter and, as it turned out, needed every one of those points to hold off Bosco, which battled right to the end and had a last shot to tie it.

After BC missed its final two free throw attempts with 14 seconds to go, Bosco ran the clock just about to the nub before finding an open shooter behind the arc and just in front of its own bench. The shot was off the mark, the Ironmen didn’t get the foul call they were looking for and may have deserved as the buzzer sounded.

Bosco head coach Kevin Diverio was upset with the no-call, but took the high road after the game and instead looked at the 24 minutes preceding the harried fourth quarter comeback as the difference in the game.

“You have to play 32 minutes. I thought we played our [butts] off for the final eight minutes of the game, but your have to bring that intensity for 32 minutes, which I don’t think we did,” said Diverio. “We may have gotten the better of them for eight minutes, but they got the best of us for the other 24. They did what it took to win. Without question, this is disappointing.”

Mark Richards and BC will take on Paramus Catholic in Monday's county final.

Gray led all scorers with 22 points and Gary Nova added 10 to lead the Ironmen. Jamel Mosely and Leonte Caroo each finished with 5 points, Mike Tobey made two field goals and Selwyn Maxwell and Yuri Wright split the other two field goals for Bosco, which fell to 14-9 on the season.

Flanagan finished with a team-high 16 for Bergen Catholic and Richards scored all but four of his 11 points from the free throw line. Charles Wingate added 7 points, McGuire and Grant finished with 5 apiece and Rigg came up big with 9 points, including an uncharacteristic three-pointer in the third quarter.

“A lot of people didn’t expect us to go far [in this tournament] because last year we lost in the first round. I think they just expected us to make it to the second round and just bow out,” said Rigg, who will play football next season at West Virginia. “But we knew we had a goal from the beginning to make it to the county championship and now we are there”

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