ALLENTOWN, NJ–With the summer league season now over, GMC Hoops continues to look back on what took place this summer. For the finale of its summer league coverage, the site made its annual pilgrimage to Allentown High School for the 2010 Summer Prime Time Shootout, which took place from Friday afternoon, August 6th to Sunday night, August 8th. Over the three days, the web site saw a total of 17 games, and got results of all 72 contests, a first.
There were 36 teams that competed in this event from 16 different conferences spread across five different states including: New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Connecticut. Many powerhouse programs were there including: St. Patrick’s, Plymouth-Whitemarsh (PA), Trenton Catholic, Shabazz, Trenton, and Plainfield along with solid programs such as Piscataway, St. Joseph’s, Ridge, Point Pleasant Beach, Ewing, Roselle Catholic, Rancocas Valley, Lakewood, New Egypt, Cherokee, Middle Township, Hun, and Notre Dame. There were 72 games played over a span of 39 hours in two separate gyms.
The Greater Middlesex Conference was represented quite well by the two teams that competed in this event, Piscataway and St. Joseph’s. The Chiefs went 4-0 while St. Joseph’s went 2-2. P-Way averaged 46.3 points per game while giving up 39.5 in their four victories. Meanwhile, St. Joseph’s scored 48.8 points per contest while yielding 41.0. Piscataway defeated Coatesville (PA) by a score of 58-47, Nazareth (NY) by a final of 44-42, Cherry Hill West (45-32), and Shabazz (38-37). St. Joe’s defeated Cherry Hill West (74-40) and Coatesville (44-37) while losing to Ewing (45-39) and Cherokee (42-38). The site was able to get a good look at both St. Joe’s and P-Way in the finales on Sunday night. The Falcons used a 22-2 tear over a span of 9:30 to break away from a 15-10 advantage for a 37-12 lead against Cherry Hill West while the Chiefs had to get some last minute heroics from Anthony Greene to defeat Shabazz.
This was the third year in a row that GMC Hoops covered this event. It was the fourth time ever. The Summer Prime Time Shootout has been going on for eleven years now. The site first covered the event back in 2004 when it was played at Ewing High School. It’s a nice event to cover since there are teams from all over the Mid-Atlantic and the Northeastern U.S. that compete, which means different styles of play, and many special players such as Jarelle Reischel of Point Pleasant Beach, Desmond Hubert and Mark Pryzbylkowski of New Egypt, Jarrod Davis of Lakewood, Brandon Taylor and Khalid Lewis of Trenton Catholic, Justin Sears, Sekou Harris, and Allen Brown of Plainfield, Dylan and Jack Kerwin of Ridge, Tommy Soulias of Princeton, and Greg Grippo, Matt Rennie, and Mike Klinger of Rutgers Prep among others.
Some of the top teams from this event included Ewing (4-0), Lakewood (4-0), Piscataway (4-0), Point Pleasant Beach (4-0), West Windsor-Plainsboro North (4-0), Baltimore City College (MD) (3-1), Middletown North (3-1), Nazareth (NY) (3-1), Notre Dame (3-1), Rancocas Valley (3-1), Trenton (3-1), Trenton Catholic (3-1), and William Allen (PA) (3-1). Allen was ranked third in point differential by outscoring its opponents by an average margin of 11.3 points per game while scoring an average of 58 points per contest during the event, the best scoring output at the Summer Prime Time Shootout this year. The best team defense in the event came from West Windsor-Plainsboro North, which outscored its opponents by a margin of 12.0 points per game while giving up 32.3 points per contest.
There were some old faces in new places this year as former Monroe head coach, Bob Turco debuted with his new school, Notre Dame of Lawrenceville. Turco, who had coached at Monroe for five seasons, and brought the program to new heights including three GMCT Final Fourberths, its first ever outright division title, and GMCT Finals berth, took over at NDHS the week before after completing the summer league season at Elizabeth with the Purple Birds. Former Spotswood standout, Tommy Soulias was in action with Princeton as well. Notre Dame went 3-1 over the two days that it competed at the event including two close victories over New Egypt (47-45) and Cherokee (36-35). Monroe resident, Ryan Germano was the hero in the ND win over Cherokee with a last second steal for a layup.
As always, the folks running the refreshments stand at Allentown High School did a superb job. There were nachos, hot dogs, meatball subs, and more. It was also surprisingly inexpensive.