February
9, 2004
March 21,
TENAFLY - Sean Martini saw it in his eyes. He watched the Teaneck player with the ball, saw the pass and made his move. With the seconds ticking away, the steal became the final nail in the Highwaymen's coffin.
For the first time in the 12 seasons that Curtis March has been the head coach, Teaneck will not be heading to the quarterfinal round of the Jamboree, as the sixth seed was ousted by 11th-seeded Pascack Valley by a 42-39 score.
Martini's effort followed a good comeback by the Indians, who were trailing 37-32 with four minutes left in the game and had turned the ball over on each of their first four possessions of the final period.
"We just kept fighting and fighting and fighting," PV head coach Keith Onderdonk said afterwards. "You've got to give the kids credit. We started the fourth quarter poorly but stuck with it."
Greg Lippert scored inside with 3:56 to go to cut the PV deficit to four and, after Teaneck took a quick shot and missed then turned the ball over on its next possession, Martini was able to pop a jumper off an inbounds pass on the right baseline to get Valley within one with 2:44 to go.
Mike Hanson drove the baseline and scored for Teaneck with 2:27 left and was fouled on the play, but he missed the free throw. That allowed Pascack to once again get within one on a basket by Justin Warshaw with 2:06 on the clock.
The foul line cost the Highwaymen again with 45 seconds left, as they missed the front end of a one-and-one. PV got a Mike Blackgrove shot in the lane that Greg Lippert rebounded and put back to grab the lead with 27 seconds left.
Teaneck then called a time out, but its plans were thwarted by Martini, who said that, "I was overplaying my man, and I just didn't want him to get open. I saw that Brian (Baker) had (Joey) Spiegel covered, and I just read his eyes and reacted to the ball."
After making the steal, Martini was fouled, but it was only the sixth team foul, so there was no shot. Teaneck then fouled Martini on the inbounds with five seconds to go and he drilled both of them to open up the three-point lead. Jermaine Nicholas then took the ball in the backcourt and went to his left, but could do no better than a running 25-footer that caught air as time expired.
"We didn't play our game," said Teaneck head coach Curtis March. "The foul line killed us (just 1 of 5 in the game) and we gave up too many easy baskets. The one by number 40 (Lippert) was the difference."
The two teams went back and forth in the first three periods as Valley got three back door layups from Warshaw (16 points) to start the game, but turnovers by Valley kept Teaneck in it as the Highwaymen converted six points off turnovers to stay within 16-14 in the first eight minutes.
After hitting 7 of 9 from the floor in that first quarter, Valley went ice cold and was 0 for 7 in the second quarter, scoring just three Martini free throws, but the Highwaymen could not take full advantage, earning only a 22-19 halftime advantage.
Twice the lead expanded to five in the third quarter, but each time Valley came back, and when Martini (17 points) hit a jumper at the right baseline and completed the three-point play with a free throw, it was 30-30.
Nicholas (11 points) hit a three-point field goal with 1:04 left in the quarter and it stood up through the rest of the period. Teaneck then gained its biggest lead of the game at 37-30 with 5:45 left when Hanson scored off a rebound and Matt Boswell hit a jumper.
At that point, PV switched out of its zone defense and went to a man-to-man and initially it seemed to disrupt the Highwaymen, who regularly see man-to-man in the NNJIL but may not have expected it.
"Ironically, it was our man-to-man defense that won the game for us. That and the foul shots," Onderdonk recalled. "It never gets easy."
Teaneck dropped to 12-4 on the season, hitting 18 of 47 from the floor, including just 2 of 12 from behind the arc. Spiegel had 10 points for the Highwaymen, while Nicholas had five rebounds and two blocks and Boswell had five assists.
Pascack Valley (14-2) shot 17 of 32 from the floor and 7 of 11 at the foul line in the game, and Warshaw had 9 rebounds and 2 blocked shots. Greg Miller, while scoreless, had six rebounds and four assists.
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