Good afternoon. I continue to work on updating stuff in the blog as a part of beginning to wrap things up for the season. I’m doing this to try and get myself back into working on the site. I’ve already made several posts today including video highlights from the fourth quarter of the game played in the North Jersey Section 2 Group III State Tournament between Colonia and Rahway as well as a tribute to senior point guard for Colonia, Brandon Hall. There are also blog entries from our Middlesex Volunteer with regard to games played by the Blue Jays earlier in the season.
Speaking of the Jays, it was sad to see Middlesex’s fine season come to an end. I had been at Colonia’s game versus Rahway, and the contest had lasted longer than I expected. As a result, I did not leave to go to Middlesex until 7:45, and didn’t arrive at MHS until about 8:25 when the game had ended just moments earlier. Middlesex trailed by as many as 19 points in the first half, but rallied to pull within four in the second half. However, the Blue Jays, which had its best season since 2001 when the team reached the Championship of the Central Jersey Group I State Tournament, and lost to Highland Park in a wild one. That season, the Jays also reached the GMCT Elite Eight, and got there by defeating the defending GMCT Champion, Sayreville in the Round of 16. Ironically, George Rauh, who coached the team that season, was in attendance at the game.
Brian Feath, who is the current coach, and all time leading scorer at the school, has done a magnificent job turning things around at Middlesex, and bringing back the winning attitude that had existed during the Rauh era. His father, Gary, who also coached at MHS, and won a sectional title with Brian’s younger brother Kevin, and a guy named Tyshon Mills, who had played at South Plainfield during my five years as a volunteer assistant coach, helped out with the freshmen team the past season, and previously coached at Franklin when it went to the Tournament of Champions in 2003. The elder Feath is retiring at the end of the school year. However, the Feaths would have had it a bit more difficult to get things turned around as quickly as they have without the help of a great group of kids attending the school right now, particularly the seniors.
This group, which I first saw play when they were freshmen in a GMC Hoops Freshmen Game of the Week against eventual Perth Amboy/GMC Freshmen Tournament Champion, J.F. Kennedy in February 2005, developed a great chemistry and camaraderie amongst themselves, and that translated to a group that embodied fine team play and unselfishness that you don’t see very often. Consequently, the Blue Jays won 18 games, and finished third in the GMC Blue behind Cardinal McCarrick and Bishop Ahr. In addition, Middlesex advanced to the Round of 16 for the second time in just the first three years of the Brian Feath era after it defeated Perth Amboy in the Preliminary Round, and gained the only top seed by a GMC team in the various state tournaments. Seniors such as John Stockton, Nick Fariella, and Billy Lester have not only come a long way in their improvement, but also have played an important role in building a solid foundation for Boys Basketball at Middlesex that will last for years to come.
You could see it in their eyes after the loss to Asbury Park in the CJ Group I Semifinals. There was a great deal of emotion spent in the locker room after the game. Nick Fariella, a pillar of toughness, and Quarterback of the Football team during the fall, whose toughest chore before the aftermath of the loss to Asbury Park was trying to pitch the ball on the Option to Vinny Zaccardi, was in understandably in tears when he emerged from the locker room. His friends and family embraced him. As I had said in my tribute to DeJuan Miller a few weeks ago, you don’t have to be a great player to understand what it is like to play in your final high school game. A part of you is gone forever, and whatever regrets or wishes to have done things differently cannot be acted upon, or redone.