Despite Starting Practices on January 19th, Jays Still Slated to Open Wednesday
MIDDLESEX, NJ—While most of the teams in the Greater Middlesex Conference that are playing this season began practices as scheduled on January 11th, the Middlesex boys basketball program had to delay the start of practices. The Middlesex Board of Education finally allowed the Jays to begin practices on January 19th.
Nevertheless, the Blue Jays are still expected to open its 2021 boys basketball season on the road at Metuchen on Wednesday evening, January 27th at 5:30 PM. Middlesex had tryouts on the 19th. A year ago, Middlesex finished 16-13 after reaching the Central Jersey Group 1 semifinals, where the Jays lost at Burlington City (81-62).
Middlesex had some ups and downs last year despite having a solid roster returning from the 2018-19 season. After winning 4 of its first 6 games of the 2019-20 campaign, the Blue Jays lost 3 of their next 5 before winning 4 of 5 including wins over Amboy Tech (63-35) and Metuchen (65-42) at home in games covered by GMC Hoops on January 21st and 27th.
The Jays then lost 5 of 7 games to finish the regular season including victory over Calvary Christian (72-60) the Play-In Round and a loss to 14th seeded Old Bridge (77-70) in the Preliminary Round of the 2020 GMCT. Middlesex then won 4 of its last 6 games including wins over Manville (61-54) and Keyport (98-57) in the first two rounds of the state playoffs.
Middlesex was only 5-7 in Blue Division play and suffered heart breaking last second losses at home to South Plainfield (51-49) and Spotswood (53-52) as well as a defeat on the road at Metuchen (59-50). The Jays finished 10-8 overall in conference play. MHS was hit hard by graduation, but have several key players returning from last year including senior starters Mark Brower, and reserves Max George (senior) and Stephen Young (junior).
During the fall, Middlesex did participate in football, and finished 3-3 overall despite having to go on quarantine due to a COVID cases. As a result, the Jays didn’t play for three weeks after defeating Pingry (51-29) on October 10th. The Jays finally did return to the football field for Senior Day on November 1st with a 34-7 victory over Spotswood. Both George and Young were key players on the 2020 football team.
Brower is one of the top players returning in the Greater Middlesex Conference. Poised to be a three year starter for the Blue Jays, Brower played in all 29 contests for Middlesex in 2019-20. As a junior, he tallied 451 points, or an average of 15.6 points per game while also collecting 125 rebounds, 53 steals, and 30 assists according to statistics from NJ.com.
During his sophomore campaign, Brower scored 221 points in 21 games for an average of 10.5 points per contest. Over the previous two seasons, Brower has scored 672 points in 45 games, or an average of 14.9 points per game. Brower needs 328 points to reach 1,000 points, which with the current schedule on tap as well as a couple of post-season games in the GMC Invitational Tournament, Brower would need to average about 25 points per game to attain the milestone.
With a population of 13,635, Middlesex Borough is slightly smaller in size than Highland Park (13,982), but is actually about twice the size in total land area with 3.52 square miles according to U.S. Census data. Middlesex has had 1,025 total cases and 28 deaths due to COVID-19, or a death rate of 2.73 percent. The borough, located in Northwest Middlesex County, has had about 7.5 cases per 100 residents, 291 cases and 8 deaths per square mile as of January 21st.