Sunday, February 1, 2015

By Cory K. Doviak
NJS.com Editorial Director

Patrick Mullane (18 points) was one of three Ramsey starters to finish in doubles figures in the Rams' 70-60 win over Rutherford in the opening round of the Bergen County Jamboree.

OLD TAPPAN – It was a decidedly different situation that the Ramsey boys basketball team found itself in on Saturday in the opening round of the Bergen County Jamboree. Despite the fact that the Rams had not been to the Jambo in 15 years, they were cast in the role of favorite, the No. 12 seed that came in with just one loss on the season to date. The juxtaposition was not lost on head coach Kevin MacGuire.

“There was definitely some pressure on us and I think we have been dealing with pressure all year. Our history says we are not a 14-1 type of team or even a Jambo-type team. We're a ground-it-out, try-to-make-the-state-tournament and win a game type of program,” said MacGuire. “We're fortunate this year with the kids that we had come back to the program and we have been able to blend them in with the three returning guys that we had to put us in this kind of position. We do feel pressure because we don't want to screw this up. We have a good thing going right now.”

Up against Rutherford, a traditionally solid program that had spent the last three years out of the Jambo itself, Ramsey got a taste of high-pressure tournament basketball and with one third quarter spurt, the Rams showed they could handle that type of situation. Down by a point after Rutherford's Regan Scanlon scored inside 1:42 into the second half, Ramsey responded with a 13-0 run, capped by Joey Carroll's four-point play, that changed the game.

Consider that the Rams won by 10 points, 70-60, and it is obvious just how much that one third quarter burst meant to the outcome. It was MacGuire's decision to get out of his favored 2-3 zone and switch to the man-to-man that fouled Rutherford up for the 1:26 it took to score those 13 unanswered points.

Rutherford junior Regan Scanlon scored all of his team-high 19 points inside the paint or at the free throw line.

“I thought we played well for 29 minutes. We had a bad stretch in the third quarter. We turned the ball over six times and they went on that run,” said Rutherford head coach Nick DeBari. “They have five skilled kids out there that can execute. When we fell behind we had to extend [the defense] a little bit on them and gamble a little bit and that is when their skill really showed.”

Ramsey laid the foundation for this season's success with a surprisingly deep run in the state tournament. With Pat Mullane, Mike Cirilli and Michael Pepper all back from that team and with the return to the program of Carroll and Jack Gaffney, two juniors who tested the non-public school waters, the Rams do have five skilled guys to run out there and on Saturday they combined to score all 70 of their points.

And all five played a part in the game-deciding run. Pepper made a field goal and a free throw to get it started, Cirilli pulled a defensive rebound and went coast-to-coast for a layup, Gaffney scored on the fastbreak off an assist from Mullane, Pepper followed in a miss and Carroll made the 3-pointer and free throw for the 48-38 lead with 3:14 to play in the third.

“Everybody has been talking about that fact that we haven't been in [the Jambo] for so long, so today was our first chance to prove that we were the real deal,” said Carroll. “In the first half we started out taking some forced shots, but in the second half we loosened up a little bit. When went to the man defense is when we turned it on and we got easy buckets out of it.”

Rutherford, which started the season 0-4 before reeling off 10 straight wins to make the Jambo field, can present problems with its inside/outside game and it established itself after a rough start. Ramsey scored the first eight points of the game, but right out of a timeout, Diego Miguens hit a 3-pointer to get the Bulldogs on the board. They closed to within 15-14 by the end of the first quarter when Dom Mignone hit a 3-point buzzer beater and went ahead for the first time when Mignone cut to the basket for the first points of the second.

Ramsey junior Joey Carroll scored a game-high 23 points.

Carroll returned the favor by beating the halftime horn to knot the game at 32, but Rutherford stuck to its plan of dumping the ball into Scanlon, the 6-foot-5 junior center who scored the first four points of the second half to put his team up 36-32. Mullane then hit a 3, but Scanlon answered at the other end and it looked like the last 14 minutes were going to be back and forth.

But then Pepper made one of two free throws and a bucket inside the next time down the floor to tie the game and kick off the 13-0 run that decided it.

Pepper, who scored the game-winning goal in Ramsey's state sectional soccer final win over Pequannock a couple of months ago, has carried that winning attitude right onto the hardwood. He is averaging a double-double this season and he managed to stay out of foul trouble most of the way while contributing on both ends of the floor, not an easy task as Scanlon eats up a lot of space.

“That kid [Scanlon] is very big and very good. He definitely knows how to keep his body down and he doesn't go for a lot of fakes. At first I had a lot of trouble getting around him,” said Pepper. “I figured out that I had to use my speed and use some post moves to get him moving and that finally opened it up a little bit.”

Scanlon scored a team-high 19 points for Rutherford, but his last two came on two free throws to end the third quarter and draw the Bulldogs to within 54-46. They got as close as five points in the fourth quarter when Mignone hit a 3 to make it 59-54 with 5:51 to play, but Gaffney answered with four straight points to bump the lead back up to nine, a big enough cushion for the Rams to ride home.

Rutherford sophomore Dom Mignone scored all 15 of his points from behind the 3-point line.

Three Rams finished in double figures. Carroll led the way with 23 points, including three 3-pointers, Mullane added 19 and Gaffney had 14. Pepper scored nine points and Cirilli scored 4 for Ramsey, who improved to 14-1 on the season and advanced to the Round of 16 where it will face No. 5 Teaneck, the four-time defending champion.

“We get contributions from everybody and it is the whole team working together that has led to our success so far,” said MacGuire, who is now 1-0 as a head coach in the Jambo. “Now the pressure is totally off and we can test ourselves against a great program, a true champion like Teaneck.”

Rutherford's Jambo run is over, but the Bulldogs gave it a real go. The way the points were distributed amongst their players and the spots on the floor from which they came showed they stuck to the game plan and nearly made it work. Scanlon got plenty of touches inside as he scored all 19 of his points from either inside the paint or at the foul line where he was 5 of 6. Mignone (15 points) and Miguens (12 points) scored all 27 of their combined points from behind the 3-point line as Ramsey had to concentrate on packing it in against Scanlon or cutting off penetration into the zone they predominantly played. JC Schmidt added 7 points, Yassin Salah added 4 and Joe Briccola made one of Rutherford's 12 made 3-pointers.

“We are happy with where we are going. I just told the kids in the locker room that at this time last year we were 3-13. Now we are 10-6, we made the tournament and we think we are heading in the right direction,” said DeBari. “The next part of our evolution is to play well for the full 32 minutes. That is what it takes to beat good teams like the one we played today.”

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