February
21, 2004
March 21,
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Carl Augustin scored six of his 11 points during the second quarter in which Bosco broke the game open. |
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HACKENSACK - After the first quarter of play, Cliffside Park and Don Bosco stood tied at 14 in the semifinal nightcap of the Jamboree at the Rothman Center Friday night. The memories of last week's squeaker that Bosco pulled out over Westwood in the quarterfinals had everyone thinking possible upset.
Tyrell Biggs would have nothing to do with another nailbiter against a BCSL American team, and he and Carl Augustin made sure that a repeat heartstopper would not play out.
The duo
dominated the second quarter, sharing all 17 Ironmen points to push Bosco
up 11 at the break, and the Ironmen were never threatened in the second half
on the way to a 63-44 win that sends them to the championship game against
NNJIL rival St. Joseph, a 59-38 winner over Northern Highlands in the other
semi.
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| Jason Cameron finished with 13 points for Cliffside Park, but needed 15 shots to get there. |
The two teams will meet on Sunday in a regular season game that will decide the NNJIL Division C champion as a warmup to tipping off for the Jamboree title. It will be the ninth championship game appearance for Don Bosco (21-3), and the Ironmen own four crowns, the most recent in 2002. Bosco has also been involved in three of the six overtime championship games, winning all three.
As he has done throughout the tournament, Biggs stepped up at the crucial moments on the way to a 19-point night. He had 11 points in that second quarter, including the basket off a rebound that broke the tie and sent DB on a 15-2 run in the first 6:01 of the second quarter.
Augustin had a pair of layups off feeds from Chris Rose (8 points, 7 assists) to finish the streak, scoring six of his 11 total points in that second period.
"That's
what we're going to need," Diverio said of the contributions of Augustin and
Rose. "Other people are going to have to step up for us to keep winning."
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| Chris Rose played a smart game for Don Bosco Prep, finishing with 8 points and 7 assists. |
The Ironmen did a nice job of containing Cliffside Park's 1-2 punch of Jason Cameron and Mike Walker. They had 27 points between them, but six of Walker's 14 came in the first period and Cameron was just 3 of 15 from the floor (2 of 10 from three-point range) and 5 of 10 at the line for his 13 points.
"We worked the last two days more on defense than anything else," Bosco head coach Kevin Diverio commented. "We were very concerned about Cameron and Walker, and (John) Oates was able to come off his man and help."
Cliffside (17-2) shot just 16 of 46, and head coach Frank Connelly said that, "we weren't intimidated, we just had a terrible shooting night. I don't know if it was the depth perception (playing on the FDU court with plenty of room behind the baskets, unlike high school gyms) or what, but we didn't make our shots."
By comparison,
Don Bosco was 26 of 38 from the floor (68 percent) and shot a perfect 9 of
9 in the fourth quarter, including eight layups or dunks (five by Oates on
his way to 20 points) and an Augustin three-pointer.
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| Cliffside's Mike Walker scored six of his team-high 14 points in the opening quarter. |
While they owned a 29-12 rebounding advantage (Oates had 8 boards and 3 blocked shots) in addition to their shooting prowess, the Ironmen made it more difficult on themselves with 19 turnovers, a number of them unforced. To Biggs, it was a lack of concentration.
"We have to step it up more," Biggs said. "We've been playing better, but we've got to do more. We're not playing smart at times, taking too many chances when we should just be doing the things we do best."
"We need to cut down on the turnovers and take better care of the ball," Diverio added, "and we need clean up some things if we're going to peak in the next few weeks."
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