HILLSBOROUGH, NJ–This past Monday, the 2010 Hillsborough JV Summer League completed play with the Championship Game. Hillsborough I, one of two teams from Hillsborough in the league, won the championship by defeating North Hunterdon. The Junior Raiders have had solid JV teams that past two seasons with Final Four appearances in the East Brunswick/GMC JV Tourney including a victory over Piscataway in the title game this year. So, expect more of the same next season for Hillsborough. The Junior Raiders reached the Final Four of the Summer League last summer before losing to East Brunswick.
Something needs to be said about North Hunterdon. The Junior Lions have reached the finals in each of the past two summers at Hillsborough. NHHS won the title last summer over East Brunswick. North Hunterdon had a coaching change at the varsity level this offseason, but the Lions played well during the summer including a victory over Monroe for the championship of the AM Session of the second Kean Ironman Challenge this summer. Kyle Rehrig, who has coached previously at Ridge, Montgomery, and Manville (girls head coach), has taken the reins of the hoops program at NHHS. The Lions have several key players returning from last year’s squad that has gone 23-24 the past two seasons including a 12-11 mark that qualified them for the North Jersey Section 2 Group IV state tournament.
While both Hillsborough and North Hunterdon are busy trying to build solid foundations at the JV level, the three GMC teams that competed in this league, East Brunswick, Middlesex, and New Brunswick, didn’t have much success in the playoff round. East Brunswick, which defeated Hillsborough II on July 7th (42-41), had the most success of the three schools, was ousted in the quarterfinal round by Franklin after defeating Hopewell Valley of Mercer County in the first round. Both the Junior Blue Jays and the Junior Zebras were eliminated in the opening round as New Brunswick lost to Hillsborough II while Middlesex fell to Bridgewater.
East Brunswick has had the best success of all the GMC teams that have played in this league the past two years. The Bears, which reached the final last year, has at least reached the Elite Eight in each of the past two years. This year, the league grew from 10 to 12 teams with Franklin and New Brunswick joining the league. The Junior Zebras previously competed in the Colonia JV Summer League last summer. There were three teams from Middlesex County, six from Somerset County, two from Hunterdon County, and one from Mercer County. Eight teams in the league were from the Skyland Conference. One was from the Colonial Valley Conference.