Blue Jays Surpass Last Season’s Win Total With Hard Fought Victory Over Mustangs, 47-40
MIDDLESEX, NJ–The Middlesex Blue Jays jumped into a 7 point lead at halftime, extendeded it to 13 and held off a furious rallyto defeat the Mustangs of John F. Kennedy-Iselin. With the first quarter mostly moving at a snails pace, the Jays won it with a 9-5 showing. The second quarter was not as clogged but still showed signs of a low scoring game to be with the home team winning the quarter by three and entered their locker room with a 7 point advantage. At the half the Jays were led by Nick Fariella and John Stockton, along with spirited play by fan favorite Kyle Paul Adams who had 3 assists in his 4 minutes spanned across 2 shifts.
The third quarter seemed to be the quarter where Middlesex would cement this game and get some backups minutes. Pulling ahead by thirteen thanks to a balanced attack led by Fariella who lead all scorers with fourteen, plus the good fundamental rebounding by the Jays interior defense with Fariella and Sparky Stockton gaining ten rebounds to their individual credits. Alas, it would not be as easy as it was advertised. Led by guard Will Roman and center John McKenna the JFK team chipped away at the once seemingly insurmountable lead. That added to the quick plays of Jonathon Toczynski and Brian Reilly led to Middlesex only winning by 6 with 3:30 to go.Â
Middlesex helped bring its struggles by missing an unusual amount of free throws. The Jays seemed to be in a major funk at the line as the starting five combined to go 2-10 from the 6:00 mark to the 2:00 mark in the fourth giving the Mustangs extra oppertunities to score. With about 2 minutes to go and the lead whittled down to four an apparent Sparky shot rimmed around with Fariella tipping it in, the refs viewpoint said the ball was still on the cylinder deeming it untouchable and calling an offensive goaltending. On the other end Joe Marciano had a critical error when he recovered a loose ball and unable to stay in bounds while falling to control it. Billy Lester also contributed by saving a ball during a critical point in the game.Â
Middlesex Super-Sub Ryan Farley stopped the bleeding by making three out of four free throws as the always dependable man at the charity stripe ran over 10 straight made free throws (8-8 vs. Robbinsville) until his streak was broken on his third attempt of the game. Toczynski would take a desperation three with under ten to play, but was unsuccessful as the Jays held on for a 47-40 win. With the victory, Middlesex improves to 8-1 overall, and 5-1 in the GMC Blue while Kennedy drops to 4-5 overall, and 2-3 in divisional play. View the box score, the three stars of the game, and the team statistics for the contest.
Scorecard
| Team | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | Final |
| J.F. Kennedy (4-5) | 5 | 10 | 7 | 18 | 40 |
| #9 Middlesex (8-1) | 9 | 13 | 13 | 12 | 47 |
3 Stars of the Game
- Nick Fariella – Middlesex – Showing toughness and grit in returning for the McCarrick game just weeks after suffering a hairline fracture, he showed the crowd just how explosive he can be with a double double.
- Will Roman – JFK/Iselin – The Senior transfer from Brooklyn, New York started slow only garnering 2 points at the break. But he rebounded to show spark with his drives that helped the Mustangs close the gap. Roman as the JFK-Iselin point leader had a quarter of the Mustangs points.
- Brian Feath – Middlesex – The Middlesex all time leading scorer and current head coach who had an excellent track record from Franklin inherited a squad which had all talent and no team. He has turned the Jays into a selfless ball sharing that can have any of the top 6 score double figures at any night, making them all the more dangerous as opposing defenses can no longer key on one player. With this win the squad from MHS has surpassed last years total (7-14 to 8-1 so far in 2007-08).
Team Statistics
| # | Middlesex | Points | Rebounds | Assists | Steals | Fouls | Blocks |
| 23 | Nick Fariella | 14 | 12 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| 20 | Sparky Stockton | 8 | 10 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 |
| 12 | John Stockton | 4 | 2 | 2 | 0 | 1 | 0 |
| 2 | Billy Lester | 2 | 4 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 5 | Mike Perone | 9 | 0 | 1 | 2 | 1 | 0 |
| 1 | Ryan Farley | 5 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 1 |
| 3 | Mike Colacci | 5 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 14 | Kyle Paul Adams | 0 | 0 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 33 | Mike Fincher | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Â | Totals | 47 | 33 | 10 | 4 | 6 | 2 |
| # | J.F. Kennedy | Points | Rebounds | Assists | Steals | Fouls | Blocks |
| 5 | Joe Marciano | 6 | 4 | 1 | 3 | 2 | 0 |
| 10 | Tyler Flowers | 2 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 11 | Will Roman | 10 | 3 | 2 | 1 | 4 | 0 |
| 14 | Justin Rosiecki | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 15 | Alex Weinstein | 2 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 20 | Jay Stolz | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 21 | Jack Frost | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 22 | Jeff Rincavage | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 24 | Jelani Davis | 0 | 3 | 1 | 0 | 3 | 0 |
| 32 | Brian Reilly | 2 | 2 | 0 | 1 | 3 | 0 |
| 33 | Jonathon Toczynski | 8 | 2 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 1 |
| 44 | John McKenna | 8 | 4 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 0 |
| 12 | Rasheed Howard | 2 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Totals | 40 | 23 | 8 | 6 | 15 | 1 |