Tuesday,
March 1, 2011
By Cory K. Doviak
NJS.com Editorial Director
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Khailed Saleh made two free throws with 59 seconds to play to give Union City the lead for good in a 49-46 upset of Hackensack in the opening round of the North 1, Group 4 state sectional tournament on Monday night. |
HACKENSACK – The Union City boys basketball team had just taken a deep breath. Leading by three points with time winding down in the opening round of the North 1, Group 4 state sectional playoffs, the Soaring Eagles’ defense had held. Hackensack was forced to take a contested three-pointer that was well off the mark and the ball was bouncing out of bounds as the clock was just about to strike 0:00. But nothing has come easy for Union City and before it could celebrate, it had to play out the same situation one more time.
It was a confusing couple of seconds. Hackensack head coach Aaron Taylor was calling for a timeout just as Chris Meyers was lining up that final shot. The referee saw Taylor’s signal and was just about to grant the time out, but then realized that the ball was already gone from Myers’ hand. The result was an inadvertent whistle, a long debate near the scorer’s table and a check of the possession arrow.
When it was all said and done, Hackensack was given another possession based on the alternate possession, five seconds were put back on the clock and Union City had to buckle down on defense once again. But Hackensack’s second ‘last shot’ also missed and Union City held on for a 49-46 first round win that puts the 12th-seeded Eagles into the North 1, Group 4 state sectional semifinals where they will pay a visit to No. 4 Roxbury on Wednesday.
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Eugene Marshall scored 16 points to lead Hackensack. |
“The inadvertent whistle was something different, but we are just happy we won. Those things happen,” said Union City head coach Drew Morano. “They got a pretty good look on that second chance, but we have been through a lot this year, so we will take a good bounce for once.”
The game, in the first half at least, was played at a pace that felt like it was a high-scoring shootout, but when the halftime buzzer sounded it was tied at just 24. Both team were getting shot, Union City from the outside and off the offensive glass, and Hackensack in transition and against the UC zone, but they just were not going in with any regularity, especially after the first few minutes.
Union City got three-pointers from Eury Almonte and Dimitri Pearson on its first two possessions of the game and got a conventional 3-point play from Khailed Saleh on its third too get off to a fast start, but Hackensack closed the first quarter with a three-pointer from Rashard Figures and a layup from Steven Zweil to close to within 16-15 at the end of the first quarter. And then points became harder to come by.
“Our sense of urgency just wasn’t there. We would do it right, follow the game plan, put a little pressure and get a turnover, then the next possession we would take off,” said Hackensack head coach Aaron Taylor. “We didn’t value the ball today. I’ve been trying to preach to them all year that a possession in the first quarter is just as important as a possession in the fourth quarter, because those early possessions could be the difference between a two-point lead and a 10-point lead late in the game.”
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Union City's Dmitri Pearson made two free throws with 13 seconds left to seal the win. |
Taylor went from preaching to something more during a timeout midway through the second quarter when he vocally tried to get his point across and he kept his team in the locker room until the final buzzer of halftime. But it was Union City that forged the largest lead of the second half, 33-28, when Justin Njoku made two free throws with 3:22 left in the third quarter.
Hackensack responded with its largest run of the game, an 8-0 spurt that gave the Comets the lead for the first time since the score was 2-0. Freshman Corrie Brown scored off a backdoor cut, Bright Mensah flipped in a layup, Eugene Marshall made two free throws and Keon Lewis cleaned up a mess underneath the basket to give Hackensack a 36-33 lead. But Xavier Corporan’s putback closed out a 5-0 run the other way and Union City grabbed a 38-36 lead heading into the fourth quarter.
There were four lead changes and two ties in the fourth quarter. Hackensack took its last lead at 45-43 when Bright Mensah showed at the elbow then drove through the zone for a layup with 2:24 to go in the game before Corporan tied it with his own driving layup with 1:41 to go. Hackensack then turned the ball over on its next possession and Saleh found himself on the free throw line for Union City in crunch time.
“I am always practicing my free throws and I always have confidence every time I go to the line. I’ve been in these kind of situations before and I didn’t feel any pressure,” said Saleh. “I love being in that spot and I want to be in that spot every time.”
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Keon Lewis' basket gave Hackensack its largest lead of the second half at 36-33. |
Saleh drained them both and Mensah made one of his two free throws at the other end with 38 seconds left, leaving Hackensack trailing 47-46. With 13 seconds to go, Dimitri Pearson made both ends of a one-and-one to give Union City the three-point lead that stood up through both of the Comets’ last shot efforts.
The Eagles got balanced scoring as Corporan led the way with 13 points, and Saleh added 11 to go along with 11 rebounds. Almonte and Pearson each finished with 9, point guard Kevin Nino made a three-pointer and Njoku chipped in with 4 points off the bench for Union City, which improved to 15-12 and extended its season for at least one more game.
“In the last five seconds we were just trying to guard the [three-point] line. We’ve had a hard time guarding people with a man defense, so we just guarded the line and, with a three-point lead, if they stepped inside it we would just let them go,” said Morano. “At halftime I felt like we should have been up six or eight points, but we never make it easy as you saw right down to the final couple of seconds. We just wanted it more in the second half. Any state tournament win is a good one and we’ll take it.”
Marshall scored a game-high 16 points for Hackensack and Mensah added 11. No other Comet made more than two field goals, however, and the No. 5 seed saw its season come to an end with a 17-9 record and just its second home loss of the season.
It was a disappointing end for a team that was hoping to make a deep run. Despite starting a freshman, three sophomores and a junior for a first year head coach, Hackensack had overcome its inexperience to make a run to the Bergen County Jamboree semifinals. That being said, the Comets are at the beginning of what should be a sustained cycle of success, not at the end.
“I guess our youth finally caught up to us today. We played a team that had all seniors and just one junior and they had been in this situation a couple of times. I think Union City felt the urgency of a season possibly ending more than we did today,” said Taylor. “We have a lot to be appreciative about, the team is young and we are learning from every game. We had a great year, it’s just that today was a bad way to end it. We had so many expectations heading into this state tournament, so to see it end at home is just not what we planned on.”
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