March
14, 2003
March 21,
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| Tom Brown's 3-pointer with 12 seconds to go was halfway down before it bounced out and left Elmwood Park just short of extending its season. | |
UNION - Already at a disadvantage on the boards against a bigger, deeper Bloomfield Tech team in the Group 1 semifinals on Thursday night, the last thing Elmwood Park needed was foul trouble. So when starting center Brad Forrestieri picked up his third foul with 4:04 to play in the second half and headed to the bench only to see starting power forward Dale Smith and his three fouls join him there less than two minutes later, there was every excuse for the Crusaders to pack it.
Elmwood Park (19-6) was already a state champion, Bloomfield Tech (21-4) was supposed to win anyway and the second half could have been a good time for the Crusaders to take some bows in front of the pack of red-clad fans that have turned the state playoff run into a series of raucous parties in the stands.
Nah.
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| Bloomfield Tech's top scorer Courtney Nelson was held to just four points. |
Instead, Elmwood Park just kept playing, just kept making baskets and just kept the pressure on the favored Spartans until the final buzzer, literally.
The figurative end of the season did not come until there were just 12 seconds left in the game when Tom Brown was creating another look for himself behind the 3-point line. As Brown rose up for the shot, he was leaping off his back foot with a defender in his face. When the ball got the to the rim, it was halfway down and when it bounced out, it took with it Elmwood Park's last chance to tie what turned out to be a 60-58 Bloomfield Tech win.
"It was
like somebody popped it back out of there," said Elmwood Park head coach Mike
Powers, of Brown's shot, which rattled around in the cylinder before changing
its mind. "(Bloomfield Tech) earned it, they were the better team…but not
by much."
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| EP's Brad Forrestieri (left) had 12 of his 15 points after halftime after picking up three fouls in the game's first 12 minutes. |
With Mike Keenan and Herminio Amado holding the fort with Forrestieri and Smith on the bench, Elmwood Park went toe-to-toe with the Spartans, and even stepped on a few during the first three quarters that saw the lead change hands 13 times and tie scores on seven other occasions.
"I thought we played excellent basketball like we have all season," said Forrestieri, who scored 12 of his 15 points after halftime. "We are a team to reckon with. Everybody was saying "You guys are playing Bloomfield Tech, they are going to blow you out of the gym'. But we came out to win today."
By mixing
up defenses, and getting Bloomfield Tech to rush its attempts, even the ones
it earned down low after offensive rebounds, the Crusaders hung around long
enough to put any ideas of a blowout to bed. Brown, who led all scorers with
21 points, opened the second half with a basket and Chris Rothenburger made
a cut to the basket on the ensuing possession and took a pass from Forrestieri
to the hole to tie the score at 27.
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| Elmwood Park's Dale Smith pulling down a rebound over Bloomfield Tech's Lamar Jones. |
With its starting five on the floor, Elmwood Park took it last lead of the night on a Forrestieri 3-pointer that gave his team a 36-35 advantage with 2:30 to go in the third quarter. While the 3-pointer was helpful, it was also costly as, with Forrestieri's shot in the air, Smith was called for his fourth foul while jockeying underneath and was back to the bench for the rest of the third quarter when BT made an attempt to pull away.
Courtney Nelson (4 points), Bloomfield Tech's leading scorer, scored the second of his two field goals in the game with 24 seconds left in the third quarter and Lamar Jones followed up a miss after a steal 20 seconds later to give the Spartans a 45-38 lead heading into the final eight minutes.
The lead
was still 7 points after Anthony Ligouri (10 points) finished a fastbreak
to give BT a 49-42 edge with 6:14 to go and the teams then traded baskets
with Amado (6 points) scoring on a Sadat Safi feed and Jason Wilson (16 points)
hitting a pull up jumpshot for the Spartans.
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| Jason Wilson led Bloomfield Tech with 16 points. |
"We got in early foul trouble which hurt us because we don't go real deep, but our reserves came in, they did a real nice job as usual. They were able to keep is within that seven to nine point range," said Powers. "A team like this can blow you out of the gym in the blink of an eye and we just kept our composure."
After a Rothenberger (9 points) 3-pointer cut the Tech lead to 58-52 with 2:08 to play, Casiem Drummond (14 points), who provided much of Bloomfield Tech's inside muscle, got one to fall and, with 1:56 to play, the Spartans had a 58-52 lead, the ball back and the game of keep away in full motion.
But Forrestieri
then made a steal at the top of the key and made his free throw after being
fouled on the layup and, after Drummond missed on an attempt to answer, EP
had the ball back trailing by just 3 points with 12 seconds to go. That led
to Brown's in-and-out 3-pointer from the corner and two Drummond free throws
that iced the win.
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| Chris Rothenburger gave EP's season a fitting send off by nailing a 3/4 court heave at the final buzzer. |
The official end to the Elmwood Park season came as the final horn sounded, but not before Rothenberger gave it a fitting sendoff by launching one from the opposite free throw line that found its way into the hoop to make the final two-point deficit.
"We should have won tonight, but not everything can go your way," said Smith, who along with Brown, will be the only two returning starters for Elmwood Park next season. "The ball just didn't bounce our way at the end. Tom's shot was almost down and then it bounced out. That's the way it goes, but when you look at our season, all I have to say is that it was a lot of fun."
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