Tenacious Team Effort In Hostile Atmosphere Lifts Joes To Title
JACKSON, NJ–If you are a St. Joe’s fan, you had to come away from the two games this week thinking that this Falcons team is definitely battle tested for the Non-Public A State Championship on Saturday.
After being pushed to overtime by 20th ranked Bishop Eustace of Pennsauken on Monday night at home, top seeded and third ranked St. Joseph’s faced a Sea of Blue that was a huge Paul VI student section in a game that was more like a road game than a championship game on a neutral court. The Falcon Flock did come out, but with a much smaller student section and only two mascots after pulling out all of the stops with four for the Eustace game on Monday night.
With spring sports teams unable to let players out of practice for the afternoon matinee, and buses in repair, the St. Joe’s student section was vastly outnumbered by its Haddonfield foe. Paul VI, ranked 16th in the state, and winners of the Olympic Conference’s National Division ahead of Bishop Eustace, took advantage of the energy from its crowd, and gave the Falcons a good fight for the first 25:58 of the contest. The Eagles swapped leads with St. Joe’s six times in the first period before the Falcons went on a 9-0 run that gave them the lead for the rest of the first half.
In the third and early fourth, Paul VI took the game over. The Eagles double and triple teamed Quenton DeCosey, who had to earn every one of his 14 points, and blocked shots and swiped steals that led to easy baskets at the other end. When James Madison bound Ron Curry sank a three from the left with for a 37-33 lead prior to a Falcons timeout with 6:02 remaining, St. Joe’s hopes for a state title were a bit in peril. However, rather than wilt under the pressure of the situation and the expectations, the Falcons answered the call with a tenacious team effort at both ends of the floor as they stifled the Eagles for a span of 5:25 while putting the game away with a classic 15-0 tear.
As in the previous two games, there was a good deal of scoring to go around, but this was perhaps the most balanced scoring effort of the tournament for the Falcons. All five starters had at least six points with four players scoring in double figures including DeCosey, Karl Towns (11 points), Danny Brix (10 points) and Karim Awad (10 points). Towns was the catalyst in the decisive run. After scoring all seven of the Falcons points in the second, Towns picked up his second foul late in the first half, and then his third a little less than midway through the third. However, in the fourth, the 6’10” freshman came up with perhaps the biggest basket to date of his young career when he took a kick out from DeCosey for a three from the left wing as he was fouled for a rare four point play, and a 37-37 tie at the 5:53 mark.
Towns wasn’t done though. He anchored a swarming Falcons defensive effort with numerous blocks down the stretch. Towns ended up with 5 blocks on the game while DeCosey added 4 of his own to give St. Joe’s 9 team blocks in the contest. Karim Awad was also huge again for the Metuchen school. For the second straight round, he scored in double figures, but most importantly, he seemed to come up with a basket when St. Joe’s needed it, especially in the second half. After Towns was called for a traveling violation at the 6:06 mark of the third, and the score tied up at 24-24, Awad came up with a big steal for a layup that put the Falcons ahead 26-24 at the 5:42 mark. Later in the period, Paul VI seemed to have momentum when it got a steal converted into a one handed dunk with 1:42 left in the third, but Awad scored again thanks to Brix pushing the ball quickly upcourt, and dishing to his teammate for the basket with a minute and a half to go in the frame.
Speaking of Brix, he was huge in the fourth with two layups and 2 of 4 from the line during the decisive run. He also had four of the nine points in the first quarter run as well. In addition to his assist on the layup by Awad in the third, he also kicked out a nice assist to Towns for his first points of the game on a 10 foot jumper from the right baseline to give the Falcons a 19-14 lead in the second. He also helped out with his defense, and handling the ball on offense. Not to be forgotten is Jimbo Long, who hit a three to open the game, and made 3 of 4 from the line down the stretch in the fourth including two foul shots that gave the Falcons a 44-37 lead with 2;41 left. Long, Brix, and Awad were in the trenches getting rebounds, and diving on the floor for loose balls. All three made hustle plays in the fourth to help keep possessions alive.
It all goes back to the defense though. In addition to shutting down Paul VI for 5:25 of the fourth, the Falcons held the Eagles without a field goal for the final 3:30 of the first, and left them scoreless for 4:23 of the second. During that stretch of 10:18, St. Joe’s outscored Paul VI by a margin of 29-2. With the victory, the Falcons improved to 28-1 with their 27th victory in a row, which equals the mark set by the 2003-04 South Plainfield Tigers for most consecutive victories during the GMC Hoops era. Up to this year that South Plainfield team was the best ever in the history of this web site. However, with the tremendous run that this St. Joe’s team has had against not only the usual rigorous Red Division schedule, but also versus top competition from outside Middlesex County, this is the best team this site has ever seen.