St. Joseph’s GMCT Run Another Reason Why 2007-08 Was So Memorable

Coming into the 2007-08 GMC Boys Basketball season, there was reason to wonder what St. Joseph’s was going to do this season. For the third straight season, the Falcons were losing key players and a good chunk of talent from the year before. Gone to graduation were Darrell Carroll, who is now at Stonehill, and brought Vince Rosario with him, Lamar Fisher, who is now playing at Division III Cabrini College of the Pennsylvania Athletic Conference, and Kyan Hines, who was also playing Division II basketball down in North Carolina. While the Falcons had a plethora of talent coming up with a sophomore class that not only consisted of 2007 GMC Hoops Freshman of the Year, Steve Rennard, but also a group that made up the St. Joe’s-White team that won the 2007 Perth Amboy/GMC Freshmen Tournament, they were still not expected to be playing for the 2008 GMCT Championship, especially with veteran teams like Piscataway, Cardinal McCarrick, and Colonia lying in their way.

Two of those veteran teams, Piscataway and Colonia were a combined 3-0 against St. Joe’s including two victories in the vaunted Bird Cage. The first time P-Way’s Chiefs took on the Falcons, it ended up being a 61-28 blowout. The Falcons, nevertheless, steadily improved during the course of the season. By the end of regular season play, the Falcons were closing the gap between themselves and second place J.P. Stevens, which defeated St. Joseph’s by a score of 53-40 on December 20th in North Edison, and the first place Chiefs. St. Joe’s then had to face the difficult task of beating South Brunswick for a third time in one season, but despite having to go to overtime, the Falcons managed to do it for a spot in the GMCT Elite Eight against fourth seeded Bishop Ahr, the only team to defeat eventual champion, Cardinal McCarrick this season.

In the GMCT Quarterfinals, St. Joseph’s and Bishop Ahr faced off in a memorable game that saw St. Joseph’s appear to have comfortable leads late in both regulation and the overtime only to have the Trojans rally to force the extra session on a contested three pointer by Trojan senior, Kevin Uszenski, and then in the overtime, fall just short. To relive those two periods of play check out the video clips below:

St. Joseph’s vs. Bishop Ahr–2008 GMCT Quarterfinals–Fourth Quarter

St. Joseph’s vs. Bishop Ahr–2008 GMCT Quarterfinals–Overtime

With the momentum from registering a key win in the Quarterfinals as well as a solid game plan by head coach, Dave Turco, for the third meeting with Piscataway in 2007-08 at the GMCT Semis, the Falcons were able to pull off an upset that no one could imagine would happen. Against P-Way in the GMCT Final Four at South Brunswick High School, the Falcons took it to the Chiefs, and exposed their weaknesses. Rennard and junior backcourt mate, Nikko Vastola continued to play solid basketball in the tourney while the always athletic Paul Konopacki along with the SWAT Patrol tandem of junior Gerard Lewis, and freshman, Robbie Ashamole, contested everything inside from the Piscataway frontcourt trio of Omar Smith, J.D. Griggs, and Tristian Benjamin to pull off the shocker, and advance to the school’s record 14th conference/county championship game. Revisit the upset victory by viewing these highlights:

St. Joseph’s vs. Piscataway–GMCT Semifinals–Final 12 Minutes

In the GMCT Championship, the Falcons proved that their run was no fluke, and was a harbinger of things to come in the near future by hanging tough against a Cardinal McCarrick team that had only lost once in conference play all season, and had won 22 of 23 games since starting the season at 2-3. Although Rennard struggled during the course of the contest, Vastola picked up the slack, and when Mike Burwell fouled out in the second half, the Falcons seemed destined to pull off one of the classic runs in GMCT history. Unfortunately, one person stood in the way of that, Julio Rosario. The younger Rosario, who has made quite a name for himself over the past two seasons of GMCT play, came up clutch in the fourth quarter, and the Eagles came away with their second ever conference/county title. Two days later, the Falcons season would end unceremoniously in the opening round of the Non-Public A South Tournament, but for the third straight season under the direction of Turco, the school won 20 or more games with a final record of 20-8.