BOUND BROOK, NJ–On Monday night, GMC Hoops traveled over to Bound Brook High School after work to take in action from the final two games of the evening in the opening round of the playoffs from the 2011 Bound Brook Summer League. Both involved GMC teams as Middlesex lost to Hunterdon Central by the score of 57-47 while Timothy Christian fell to Somerville by the score of 42-17.
Somerville Defeats Timothy Christian To Advance To Semis, 42-17
In the finale of the opening round playoff quadrupleheader at Bound Brook High School, the third seeded Somerville Pioneers from the Raritan Division of the Skyland Conference took on sixth seeded Timothy Christian of the Greater Middlesex Conference Gold Division.Â
The Tigers from Timothy Christian moved up this summer to play in the Bound Brook Summer League after being in the Middlesex County Summer League for a number of years. Â TCS still has another squad playing at MCC. Â This summer, Timothy Christian went 4-4 during the regular season after suffering losses to Hunterdon Central, Piscataway, and New Brunswick in the final week of play.
Meanwhile, Somerville started off on the wrong foot with a couple losses early on, but didn’t lose much after that as the Pioneers defeated Piscataway in the final week to earn the third seed for the playoffs.  It was  a tall order for the Tigers as they went up against a bigger and stronger Somerville team.  To make things more difficult, TCS was playing without the likes of Jeff Parker, Dan Decker, and Kristian Svendsen.
TCS needed to play a perfect game, and Somerville didn’t let them do that. Â The Pioneers jumped out to an 8-0 lead while the Tigers didn’t score until Brandon Summers scored off a spin move at the 14:07 mark of the first half. Â Somerville, which defeated another GMC team in Middlesex in the opening round of the playoffs here last summer, had ten field goals in the first half including a three pointer while making 2 of 4 from the line to take a 23-8 lead at the intermission.
The Pioneers scored 16 of their first half points off of turnovers. Â From there, Somerville cruised to an easy 42-17 victory, and a berth in the semifinals on Tuesday against second seeded Hunterdon Central, a winner in the 6:45 PM game over Middlesex. Â Summers was the bright spot for the Tigers with 10 points including seven in the first half. Â Summers connected on four field goals including two threes for the Tigers. Â TCS only had six players while Somerville had seven play in the contest.
After Timothy Christian got on the board with the Summers score, the Tigers looked like they might climb back into the contest when Summers scored on a shot that got a kind bounce at the 12:55 mark for an 8-4 Somerville lead. Â However, TCS wouldn’t score again for the next 9:26 while the Ville put together an 11-0 run for a 19-4 lead. Â Then, after Summers connected for a three pointer from the left wing at the 3:29 mark to narrow the deficit to 19-7, the Pioneers ended the half with the four of the last five points including a bank shot at the 1:10 mark, and then a one handed dunk at the 14 second mark for a 23-8 lead at the intermission.
In the second half, the Tigers were more competitive by only being outscored by a 19-9 margin. In addition, TCS was able to find other sources of scoring outside of Summers, who only had a three pointer at the 17:22 mark of the second half. However, it didn’t prevent the final result. Somerville went on a 12-1 tear over a span of 7:31 after Summers three to increase its lead to 36-12 with 9:51 to go. The Tigers, which again had only three field goals in the second half including another three along with 2 of 6 from the foul line, was held without a field goal for 10:35.
Timothy Christian ended up with 6 field goals including two threes along with 3 of 9 from the foul line. Somerville had 6 field goals and 7 of 11 from the line in the second half, and ended up with 16 field goals and 9 of 15 free throws for the game. The Pioneers had seven more points off of turnovers in the second half for 23 such points in the game.
GMC Hoops plans to be back out at Bound Brook High School on Tuesday for semifinal round action.