Sunday, February 12, 2012

By Cory K. Doviak
NJS.com Editorial Director

Sophomore Alex Thomas finished with a double- double for Hawthorne Christian, which reached the Passaic County semifinals for the first time with a 43-40 win over Wayne Valley on Saturday.

PATERSON – It looked like one of those times when a player rises to the occasion, the time when a premier player calls for the ball, catches it and goes to the basket with no intention of allowing the defense to stop him. With Hawthorne Christian Academy closing in fast on third-seeded Wayne Valley in the quarterfinals of the Passaic County Tournament, Paul Little took the ball in the corner and did not hesitate when he beat a defender to the baseline, elevated and brought the ball from behind the backboard and laid it in with his right for the first points of the fourth quarter and toward the end of an 11-0 run.

But the look of the play was slightly deceiving.

“On that play, I was getting cramps in my legs and I wanted to call a timeout, but Coach [Kevin Standford] said he wasn't going to call one and he told me that I needed to score,” said Little, HCA's junior forward. “I was just looking to score as fast as I could, so I went baseline to get it over with.”

The tide had turned in HCA's favor and the smallest team in the tournament made a large statement by erasing an eight-point third quarter deficit and reaching the Final 4 for the first time in school history with a 43-40 win on Saturday at John F. Kennedy High School in Paterson.

Jay Mustafa finished with a team-high 13 points for Wayne Valley.

Hawthorne Christian came into the game with a 14-2 record, but also as a kind of a mystery to the rest of Passaic County, which doesn't see the Defenders all that often because its size and schedule.

“I don't take any offense to it and I understand. Nobody sees us. We play in a Bergen County league, so when people look at our record in a Group 1 league and they question how good we are, I don't have any problem with that because they never see us play,” said Standford. “Now, maybe having seen us play, they might have a little bit of a different opinion.”

To see Hawthorne Christian play is to watch a team that knows its strengths and rarely strays from them. With Little patrolling the baseline and 6-foot-7 sophomore Alex Thomas in the middle, HCA's guards make sure that its big guys get at least touch on every possession. When turnovers are avoided and sets are run, HCA usually gets a quality look either through entry passes to the post or kick outs to open shooters.

Even when Wayne Valley opened the game with a 10-2 run, sixth-seeded HCA stuck to its plan. A three-pointer from the corner by Little and another by Nick Aust off a Thomas pass out of a double team bookended a Wayne Valley timeout and got the Defenders to with one point at 16-15 with 4:08 to go in the second quarter and they took their first lead of the game at 7-16 when Little finished on a fastbreak. Wayne Valley got back-to-back three-pointers from Jay Mustafa and James Grevenitz and a free throw from Andrew Keane to take a 23-19 halftime lead.

Paul Little finished with15 points for HCA, which improved to 15-2.

A 6-0 lead midway through the third quarter gave Wayne Valley (15-5) its largest lead of the game at 31-23, but HCA closed to within 34-31 by the end of the third quarter before taking control in the fourth.

“In the beginning I think we were a little nervous. There was a big crowd and we were excited to play, but we needed time to settle in and once we did we controlled the game and it felt good,” said Thomas, who finished with a gaudy double-double (17 points, 17 rebounds) to go along with 5 blocked shots. “For myself, I just wanted to let the game come to me and not just start forcing things. We played hard, but we were patient when we had to be.”

Thomas hit two free throws with 4:41 to play and those to points gave his team the lead for good at 35-34, but did not have a two-possession lead at any time in the game until there were 51 seconds left in the game and Thomas made to more free throws to put the Defenders up 43-38.

Two Keane free throws got Wayne Valley back to within 43-40 with 40 seconds left, but the Indians were unable to make HCA pay for a turnover on its next possession or two missed free throws with 11 seconds to play. The Indians did get a decent look out of a time out on their last possession, but Mustafa's last-second three-point attempt was from well behind the arc and offline.

Wayne Valley's James Greventiz made two 3-pointers and finished with 10 points.

The game was decided by the respective starting fives as neither team got even a single point from its bench using seven-man rotations. Thomas and Little (15 points) combined to score 32 of HCA's 43 points. Jake Hart scored six, including a 4 for 4 performance from the free throw line, and Nick Aust had the Defenders other 5 points. HCA was a combined 13 of 21 from the line as a team.

Mustafa (13 points) and Grevenitz (10 points) each finished in double figures for Wayne Valley, which got 6 points apiece from Chris Homsi and Scott Arkin and 5 from Keane. Wayne Valley, which did not venture into the paint often on the offensive end because of Thomas' presence inside, shot just seven free throws in the game and made three of them.

Hawthorne Christian Academy is now truly in uncharted territory. It will take on second-seeded DePaul in next Saturday's semifinal round and on the other side of the bracket are the Paterson public schools, Kennedy and Eastside. Little HCA is in there with the big boys.

“I think our kids just have to feel like every game is a tournament in itself because if you lose you are out. Lose once and you are done,” said Standford, whose team beat Group 4 Passaic in the Round of 16. “Our kids have the mentality of let's just go out and play. They love playing together and that is there whole thing. There might have been some question marks, but getting two big [tournament] wins like this is big for us.”

FOR MORE PHOTOS OF THIS EVENT OR TO BUY A COLLECTOR'S PRINT OF THIS GAME STORY, PLEASE VISIT 4FeetGrafix.com.