EDISON, NJ–Following work on Tuesday night, GMC Hoops traveled over to The Basketball Shooting Academy on Carter Driver after being at Middlesex County College to see action, and get results from that particular summer league. The web site managed to catch a little bit of the action from the nightcap round of games. Actually, one of the contests between Dunellen and South Brunswick wasn’t played since the Vikings did not show. Instead, the Destroyers played a pickup game. However, on an adjacent court, J.P Stevens was taking on Spotswood in a hard fought battle.
Prior to going over to see the action between JPS and Spotswood, GMC Hoops took time out to speak with former South Amboy standout, and current assistant for the Guvs, Nick Shaw, who indicated to the site that there has still yet to be a replacement for the recently retired George Krzyzanowski at the school. For those, who don’t recall, Shaw scored over 1,000 points at South Amboy including 73 in one game his senior year against Perth Amboy Tech in the 2002-03 season. Shaw then went on to play at Ramapo for a year, and then two seasons at FDU-Florham with former Stevens standout, Andrew Biancosino.
Getting over to the action, GMC Hoops arrived with less than three minutes to go in the contest, and J.P. Stevens leading by ten, 44-34. There was a very good crowd in attendance for both Stevens and Spotswood. Among those were the usual array of familiar faces of parents of players on both squads. Moments after arriving, Nick Pol put Stevens ahead by an even dozen with a field goal at the 2:35 mark that made the score, 46-34. Ten seconds later though, the Chargers would answer thanks to Ross Gerhart, who netted a jumper that closed the gap to ten again at 46-36 with 2:25 left. Following a JPS timeout, both teams had opportunities to score, but didn’t for about 1:08. Spotswood had a chance to get within single digits again following a James Pareti steal, but Cody Pace committed a turnover when he threw the ball away squandering that opportunity.
Eleven seconds later, the Hawks got the final points of the game as Myles Rueben scored on a putback off a missed layup by Pol at the 1:17 mark for the 48-36 lead. Despite being down by double digits with very little in the way of time left, Spotswood, led by Pace and Pareti as well as Gerhart, continued to fight, and refused to give up. Pace had a chance to put the Chargers on the board again, but missed the layup attempt with 40 seconds to play. J.P. Stevens tried to go over the full court pressure by Spotswood late as Tahir Swinton threw a baseball pass downcourt from underneath his own basket that went out of bounds at the 33 second mark. Both teams then missed out on scoring opportunities down the stretch as J.P. Stevens maintained its twelve point margin in the 48-36 victory.
The game didn’t start out that easily though for the Hawks. Spotswood opened the game strong with 11 of the first 12 points, and actually led 13-2. However, J.P. Stevens, which defeated South Brunswick on Thursday, July 10th at TBSA, took advantage of the Charger reserves, and rallied to take an eight point lead into the brief intermission. GMC Hoops plans to be back out at the TBSA Summer League sometime on Thursday.