Owls Join Old Bridge with Delayed Start of Hoops Season
HIGHLAND PARK, NJ—In addition to the cancellation of boys and girls basketball seasons by GMC schools, Carteret and Perth Amboy earlier this month, Highland Park became the second school in the Greater Middlesex Conference to delay the start of its boys and girls hoops seasons. The Owls will begin play on February 1st.
Highland Park, which moved up to the GMC Blue Division this season along with Dunellen, was originally scheduled to open the season against South Plainfield on January 26th. Now, the Tigers will open its season with a crossover game against J.P. Stevens on January 28th in North Edison. Currently, the Highland Park school district is currently going with an all remote format, but is hoping to adopt a hybrid schedule at the beginning of February.
The Highland Park basketball program is currently practicing outdoors right now like Old Bridge, which has also delayed the start of its boys basketball season to February 1st. Last season, Highland Park endured another difficult varsity season after a promising year two seasons ago. With the likes of Romelo Haskins and Chad Ghee graduating, and Donovan Crawford transferring to North Brunswick, the Owls struggled.
Playing a Gold Division schedule in the 2019-20 GMC boys basketball campaign, Highland Park finished 3-21 overall including a 1-15 mark in divisional play, and a 2-17 record in conference. The Owls defeated South Amboy (71-58) at home on January 17th, and then followed that up with a victory at South River (61-54) on January 21st. Highland Park then got its last win of the season on the road at Henry Hudson (60-47) in a non-conference game on February 18th.
The Owls lost the likes of Dylan Darkwah and Myles Herzog to graduation in June, but have senior Ben Mickulas returning this year along with the likes of talented juniors Ewan Haley-Lock and Matt Brzozowski. The move up to the GMC Blue could pose a tough challenge for the Owls, which has had only two double digit win seasons, and just one year at or above .500 since the 2002-03 campaign.
Two seasons ago, Highland Park showed some promise when the Owls put together its most competitive season since the 2009-10 campaign. Led by the likes of Crawford, Haskins, Ghee, Darkwah, and Herzog, Highland Park finished just a win shy of double digit victories at 9-12 including a 7-9 mark in the Gold Division. The Owls did lose to Sayreville in the preliminary round of the 2019 GMCT, but competed well in a 76-69 loss at the Bomb Shelter.
Highland Park does have a bright future with talent coming up from the JV level that enjoyed one of its best seasons in a number of years at 13-7 last season while its Middle School program also turned in a solid year at 9-5 in 2019-20. Mickulas is the top player coming back for HPHS this season. After playing only 6 games and scored 10 points in 2018-19, the senior played in all 24 contests as a junior.
In those 24 games, Mickulas made 113 two point field goals, and 10 threes along with 37 foul shots to tally 316 points, or an average of 13.2 points per game. Darkwah, who is now attending Penn State-Altoona, also played in all 24 games for the Owls, and made 78 field goals, 14 threes, and 47 free throws for a total of 262 points, or an average of 10.9 points per game to rank 2nd on the team in scoring behind Mickulas.
The only time in the past 18 seasons has Highland Park had a non-losing season was in the 2005-06 campaign. Coached then by Tom Sclafani, and led by the likes of senior Jaron Mayfield and sophomore Mike Burwell, the Owls finished 12-12 including a 6-8 mark in the GMC Blue. Highland Park actually not only qualified for the state playoffs that season, but defeated Academy Charter (95-83) in the opening round before falling to Metuchen (68-61) in the quarterfinals.
With a population of nearly 14,000 people as per the U.S. Census, Highland Park has had a total of 655 cases of COVID-19 resulting in 12 deaths as of Thursday, January 21st. Only having a total land area of 1.8 square miles, Highland Park has a death rate of 1.83 percent to Coronavirus, 4.7 cases per every 100 residents, 362 cases and 7 deaths per square mile.