January
4, 2007
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| Bilal Dixon scored a team-high 21 points for Queen of Peace, which improved to 5-2 on the season with a 70-57 home win over Rutherford. | |
NORTH ARLINGTON -- Through the first six games of the season, Cory Kearny has been the focus of opposing defenses. The Queen of Peace senior, a three-year starter, has seen all kinds of tricky defensive sets designed to stop him and it was the same when Rutherford came out in a box-and-one.
But that strategy only works when the player that it is designed to stop is the only player that can consistently put the ball in the basket. That was not the case for Queen of Peace on its own home floor on Thursday night.
After starting the game in a 5-0 hole thanks to a quick start by Rutherford’s Jared Holzherr, the Golden Griffins showed off a complete offensive arsenal and a defense that could pressure the ball and create easy shots.
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| Jared Holzherr scored Rutherford's first eight points and finished with a game-high 31. |
In the first quarter alone, four different QP players scored at least two field goals and 6-7 junior Bilah Dixon established himself on the inside. Queen of Peace took the lead for good midway through the first quarter and never looked back on the way to a 70-57 win. The Griffins dominated the middle two quarters and built a lead that ballooned to as many as 17 points by halftime and 23 points early in the fourth before calling off the dogs.
“Those first three quarters were the best three quarters of basketball that we have played this season,” said Bill Schoner, who is in his second season as QP’s head coach. “Tonight was the first night that we were really able to function on the offensive end when the other team was taking Corey out of the game. Bilal Dixon, the big kid, really stepped up for us tonight.”
Kearney was held to nine points, but his three-pointer from the wing 2:21 into the game got QP even for the first time. And after weathering Holzherr’s early storm, which included scoring the Bulldogs’ first 8 points and a three-pointer that gave his team a slim 8-7 advantage, the Griffins took over.
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| Q of P sophomore point guard Javae Gilchrist finished with 10 points and four steals. |
They scored nine straight points, the last two on Javae Gilchrist’s steal and layup, to pull ahead. Gilchrist then scored on the fastbreak to close the first quarter and give QP its first double digit lead at 25-14.
Dixon scored 10 of his team-high 21 points in the first quarter and also put Rutherford in foul trouble, which spelled doom for a roster that has been ravaged by injury. Rutherford was again without the services of 6-4 senior center Andrew Kalb, who has yet to play this year after suffering a knee injury in a preseason scrimmage. Jamie Pornofiello, a senior who missed all of last season with a knee injury, is still not 100 percent and Mark Leonard, while in the starting lineup, is fighting a knee injury of his own.
“They are good. We had no answer for the big kid, we got in foul trouble and we are not that deep,” said Rutherford head coach Brian Gaccione. “We had to play a perfect game to hang in there and their defense kept us from doing that.”
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| Denis Ackermann finished with 10 points for Rutherford. |
Queen of Peace had some foul trouble of its own, but it hardly slowed the Griffins. When starting off-guard Al-Don Muhammad picked up his second foul in the first quarter, Zaire Harris, another junior, came off the bench to score six of his 16 points. Harris also had four steals and he and Gilchrist (4 steals) made it difficult for Rutherford to get into its offense consistently.
“They came out in a box-and-one against Corey [Kearney] and we knew that the rest of us had to step up,” said Harris, a Paterson resident. “I had to do more because they were focusing on Corey and my man Al-Don was in foul trouble. We are a team so we all had to do what we could.”
Dixon had 8 rebounds to go along with his 21 points and Gilchrist (10 points) made it three Griffins to reach double digits. Sophomore Dwayne Moffatt added five points and Brendan Simms scored all four of his points on consecutive possessions late in the second quarter to give QP its 38-21 halftime lead.
Holzherr’s 31 points led all scorers and he was the lone bright spot for Rutherford, which fell to 5-3 with the loss. Even though it is still early in the season, it is getting late quick. The Bulldogs know they can’t make the Jamboree field in early January, but they could certainly play their way out of the tournament.
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| Junior Zaire Harris came off the bench to score 16 points for Queen of Peace. |
“We had a goal to make the Jamboree and we have seven games left before the cutoff,” said Gaccione, who proceeded to rattle off the next seven games on the schedule from memory. “I would say we have to go 5-2 to get there. We have to get our guys back and playing well in hurry.”
With teams like defending league champion Westwood, Ridgefield Park, a Jambo qualifier last year, and others like Englewood and Fort Lee, there are few nights off in the BCSL-American Division this year. Queen of Peace is well aware that just about every night out it will be playing what amounts to a Jambo play-in game.
“We lost to Westwood and we lost to Ridgefield Park and I am glad that both of those games are out of the way,” said Schoner, whose team went 11-15 last season and missed both the state and county tournaments. “This was a big game for both of us. Rutherford was 5-2, we were 4-2 and we both of us have the same goal of getting in the Jamboree. Of course we have to go out and prove it every night, but we feel like we have the talent to get there.”
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