In the continuing wrap-up of the recently ended 2007-08 season, GMC Hoops is honoring Cardinal McCarrick’s Mike Burwell, who turned in an incredible season in terms of just the shear numbers. Burwell, who began his career at Highland Park, and helped bring the Owls its first state tournament berth since the school won the Central Jersey Group I Championship back in the 2001-02 season, led the Eagles to its first GMCT crown since 2003, and the second one in school history. Transferring to McCarrick prior to the start of his junior year, ended up with 1,720 points for his career with nearly 800 of those points coming this year alone.
Burwell was amongst the top scorers in the state, and actually led all scorers in New Jersey with a 27.1 points per game average according to the web site, MaxPreps.com although not all coaches in the Garden State do not utilized the online high school sports site. Although he struggled to shoot from the floor in the nine games witnessed by GMC Hoops, he still managed to register a double-double over those games including a scoring average of 25 points per game. More importantly though, he helped the Eagles reach two consecutive Greater Middlesex Conference Tournament Championship games including the 2007 GMCT Final, which they lost to Piscataway.
Over the two years that Burwell was at Cardy Mac, the Eagles had compiled a record of 43-12 including a 19-7 mark in 2006-07, and a 24-5 record in 2007-08. The school won at least a share of two Blue Division Championships, made two GMCT Final Four berths, and 2004-05 team with 17 consecutive wins after enduring a 2-3 start to the season that included a difficult loss to arch rival Bishop Ahr in South Amboy on December 22nd. Burwell, who has garnered a great deal of interest from Division I schools including: Michigan, Colorado, Bradley, San Diego, Fordham, St. Bonaventure, Old Dominion, and South Florida, still has high aspirations even if he doesn’t meet his primary objective of playing someday in the NBA.
Burwell played varsity all four years he was in high school. His first two years at Highland Park, and his last two at McCarrick. After standing out as a freshman at HPHS during the 2004-05 season, Burwell began to create waves during the summer of 2005 when he helped lead the Owls to the Championship of the Middlesex County College Summer League. En route to the title, Highland Park knocked off a Carteret team (37-36) that had defeated Piscataway in the Quarterfinals. After beating the Ramblers, the Owls then defeated Blue Division rival, Spotswood (38-37) for the crown, and Burwell received MVP honors. Then, during the 2005-06 season, the then sophomore came into his own with a memorable performance in a losing cause to Metuchen at MHS on January 9th. In that game, Burwell scored 31 points, and nearly led the Owls to a remarkable comeback after trailing by twenty or so points in the first half. In the end though, the Bulldogs led by Marqus Blakely, DeJuan Miller, and company, were simply too much in a 70-64 win.
Much had been made about Burwell’s scoring this season, and you can’t dispute that with numerous 30 plus point games including several 40 point games. However, Burwell really made strides in the area of rebounding, where he averaged over 10 rebounds per game in the nine contests tracked by the web site. One of those games was a 17 rebound effort in the GMCT Semifinals versus Colonia. The 6’6″ senior forward even drew charges like the one he got against Bishop Eustace of Pennsauken in the Non-Public B Quarterfinals in South Amboy on February 29th. Thanks for all the memories, Mike, and best of luck in your future endeavors.