Sunday, January
10, 2016
By Cory K. Doviak
NJS.com Editorial Director
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Ryan Curtiss had 14 points to lead Ramapo in a 55-38 win over Manchester in the second game of the six-game Mel Henderson Showcase played on Saturday at Hackensack High School. |
HACKENSACK – The Mel Henderson Showcase, six games played over the course of a full day and night at Hackensack High School on Saturday, had all the bells and whistles. Set up to honor the life and career of former coach, educator, administrator, politician activist and advocate Mel Henderson, who led Hackensack to three Bergen County Jamboree titles, the event was a celebration of his life complete with a DJ and public address announcer that called much of the action on the court.
And what that PA announcer noticed almost right off the bat was the size, not necessarily the height, but the strength, of the Ramapo basketball team. At one point, he said, “It looks like a bunch of linebackers out there.”
Not quite. There was a linebacker (Ryan Curtiss), but also a couple of defensive backs (Keith Woetzel and Joe O’Hagan), a Division 1 dual-threat quarterback (Woetzel) and a running back (O’Hagan), who did not mind grinding between the tackles during the state championship football season that the Green Raiders recently completed.
Try to back them down and the Green Raiders don’t budge, try to grab a rebound and an opponent better go in with two hands and be ready to fight for it and any loose ball looks like the scrum that accompanies a fumble on the gridiron. Ramapo used its strength, its deep bench and its competitive spirit to improve to 8-1 on the season with a 55-38 win over Manchester.
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Senior Keshawn Pearson scored 12 points to lead Manchester. |
“We are not pretty, but we will come out and play hard for 32 minutes. That is a guarantee,” said Ramapo head coach Joe Sandberg. “Our energy and our defense will be constant no matter what and we have the depth to do it. My biggest challenge is kind of knowing when to hold them back in practice because they always want get out on the floor and kill each other. This group is always ready to compete.”
Manchester is in a different physical state. Having lost one player to a late transfer, without two others waiting to become eligible and with one healing from an appendectomy, the Falcons, the defending North 1, Group 2 state sectional champions, hung tough for two quarters before fading. Manchester was down just 25-21 at halftime and Zack Legreaux hit a 3-pointer right out of the break to make it a one-point game. Ramapo responded with an 11-0 spurt over the next 2:52 to quickly take control for good.
Chris Gordon hit 3-pointers from the wing on consecutive trips to finish it as the Green Raiders went up 36-24 and then clamped down on the defensive end. Ramapo allowed just seven second half field goals.
“We were right in there. We were within a point or two right after the half and we had them pretty figured out, but it the third quarter it all fell apart,” said Manchester head coach Rich Sponzilli in an appearance on Talkin’ Hoops on Saturday night, which is now playing on northjerseysports.com. “With our lack of depth, a couple of guys got a little sloppy and I didn’t really have too much to replace them with. I had a freshman and a sophomore on the bench and it is hard to use them in that situation with no experience.”
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Senior Matt Latka scored 9 of his 13 points in the second half and was named Ramapo's MVP for the game. |
Ramapo is full of experience. There are nine seniors on this year’s team, 10 if you count Jack Schofield, who will miss the season with injury, and many of them were part of the 2013 freshman team that went undefeated and won the Bergen County Freshman Tournament.
Ramapo, whose only loss was against state power St. Joseph (Metuchen) in a close game, comes at opponents in waves and never relents. The Raiders led 44-28 after the third quarter, led by 17 after Curtiss snuck out for an uncontested lay-up and then squelched Manchester’s final thrust, five straight points by Keshawn Pearson, with a 5-0 run right out of the ensuing time out.
“Us big guys, me and Woetzel, we always have to run the court. There are not a lot of big guys around that are always willing to do that, but we are because we can’t score any other way,” said Curtiss, who finished with a team-high 14 points, eight of them on fastbreak run-outs, four off the offensive glass and two on a layup off a pretty feed by O’Hagan that closed the third quarter scoring. “We all come from the football team that just won a state championship and we are trying to carry that over. Strength is an ability that we all have and we use that to our advantage.”
Matt Latka, one of the basketball first players in the Ramapo rotation, and who was nominated for the McDonald’s All-American game last week, finished with 13 points, 9 in the second half, and was named his team’s MVP. The rest of the Raiders’ scoring was spread between Gordon (6 points), O’Hagan, freshman KC Hunt and Woetzel, who all finished with 5, Jason Oppler (3 points) and Frankie Aiello and Peter Caride, who each made fourth quarter field goals.
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Alex Morales scored 10 points for Manchester, which fell to 5-2 ahead of its game against St. Anthony on Tuesday. |
Manchester was led by three players in double figures. Pearson had 12, Ahkeil Murray had 11 and Alex Morales had 10 for the Falcons, who fell to 5-2 in advance of Tuesday night when they will welcome in national power St. Anthony.
Ramapo has pushed it way into the upper echelon of Bergen County. The Green Raiders and Teaneck look to be the best of the publics and both of them might be fighting for that fourth spot in the Jambo semifinals when defending champion Bergen Catholic, Don Bosco Prep and St. Joseph Regional are taken into account.
Then again, the Green Raiders might push on even further in the week-and-a-half directly ahead.
“We feel like we are good enough to defend anybody, it is just a matter of if we are going to be able to score enough points,” said Sandberg. “We’ll find out a lot about ourselves next week when we play St. Joe’s and Don Bosco before the counties, so we will have a good idea going in. I like our group. They are a bunch of winners and when you have a bunch of winners anything can happen.”
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