February
16, 2006
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| Noruwa Agho scored 17 of his 23 points in the first half as St. Joseph pulled away early. | |
PARAMUS -- Over the last couple of seasons, playing a zone defense against the St. Joseph basketball team has proven to be the way to break it down. There was a level of discomfort and in some cases impatience on the part of the Green Knights.
Familiarity has softened their stance, though, and now what was once a thorn is becoming increasing more manageable for St. Joe’s, as they proved in the Bergen County Jamboree quarterfinals on Wednesday night. The Knights picked apart Ridgefield Park, content to work inside the paint with Noruwa Agho in the first half and let Junior Galette be creative in the second half of a 79-54 defeat of the Scarlets at Paramus High School.
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| John Tello led Ridgefield Park with 27 points, 20 of them in the second half. |
The victory sends the second-seeded Green Knights to the Rothman Center at 6:00 p.m. on Saturday in a semifinal matchup with sixth-seeded Old Tappan. It also pits SJR head coach Mike Doherty against the man who was his high school coach 25 years ago, Dennis Rossi. Doherty was a backup point guard on the Rossi-coached St. Joseph team that won the Jamboree in 1981.
“I’m not looking forward to it,” Doherty said of his first-ever game against his former mentor, for whom he was an assistant coach for three seasons before taking over the head job in the 1989-90 season.
Ridgefield Park (17-4) could not control the paint despite the zone defense, and early on it was the second chance points that allowed the Knights to move out to a 9-2 lead. They had five putback baskets in the first period alone and 20 second chance points in the first half.
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| Erol Belizaire had four assists as a part of SJR's balanced offense. |
When they weren’t scoring off rebounds, the ball was getting to Agho for the 10-foot jumper or the drive to the hoop. St. Joseph (19-1) scored the final 10 points of the first period and the first two of the second to assume a 25-9 advantage and never looked back.
“We’ve grown to rely on that short jump shot he makes.” Doherty said of Agho.
The first two scores of the surge were putbacks and the last eight came from Agho, all inside. He scored 17 of his 23 points in the first half.
“We’ve seen a lot of zones this year,” Doherty assessed, “and we’re very comfortable against them. We get good movement, Noruwa and Junior are very good at finding the seams and David Zuber and Marc Mandara are good at getting them the ball when they’re open.”
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| Nico Velez finished with 10 points for Ridgefield Park. |
While Agho was on fire, the Green Knights were keeping the Scarlets’ leading scorer, John Tello, in check. He had only two field goals and seven points in the first half, which ended with St. Joe’s up 38-21.
“Noruwa was looking forward to that defensive challenge,” Doherty related, “but Tello is good enough that we needed our guards to put pressure on the perimeter to keep the ball out of his hands.”
The third quarter belonged to Galette, who had only five first half points but drained 16 in the third quarter alone on the way to a game-high 28 points. He was able to get free a number of times on the back side for layups and was 6 of 7 shooting in third the quarter.
“You could see he felt comfortable going to the basket in the second half,” Doherty commented.
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| SJR's Junior Galettescored 16 of his game-high 28 points in the third quarter. |
The Knights stretched the lead throughout the third quarter, taking a 62-37 margin into the final period before coasting home. Tello had a big second half, scoring 20 points to finish with 27, but the game had long been decided. He also had 5 rebounds. Nico Velez was the only other Scarlet in double figures with 10 points, as Ridgefield Park shot 19 of 43 from the floor (1 of 7 from three) and 15 of 24 at the foul line.
Mandara had five offensive rebounds in the first half and ended up with seven total boards, while Erol Belizaire and Zuber had four assists apiece. SJR hit on 34 of 62 shots (missing all six three-point tries) and 11 of 13 free throws.
FOR MORE PHOTOS OF THIS GAME OR TO BUY A COLLECTOR'S PRINT OF THIS GAME STORY, PLEASE VISIT 4FeetGrafix.com.
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