January
17, 2007
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| Sam Hagopian, Old Tappan's lone senior starter, finished with 16 points and 11 rebounds as the Knights won their fourth straight game, 62-61, in overtime on Tuesday night against Mahwah. | |
OLD TAPPAN -- The Mahwah boys basketball team started the season at 1-3. Old Tappan got out of the blocks at 1-5. So it was a testament to both teams that there was something on the line when they met up on Tuesday night. Old Tappan came in riding a three-game winning streak and was seeking an even .500 record.
Mahwah had won four in a row and with a win over OT, a team they beat earlier this season, the Thunderbirds could have made eyes at a spot in the Bergen County Jamboree.
Mahwah was looking good after needing just three minutes to put together a 10-0 run to break open a tie game midway through the third quarter, but Old Tappan did the T-Birds one better over the next 1:44. Bryan Stankiewicz scored seven points, Sam Hagopian added a three-pointer and Max Blank made three free throws all in less than two minutes as the Knights rallied to grab a three-point lead heading into the fourth quarter.
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| Scott Matherin scored 10 of his 13 points in the fourth quarter to help Mahwah force the overtime. |
Old Tappan led by as many as seven points in the fourth quarter, but nothing would be decided in regulation as Mahwah’s Scott Matherin made key shots down the stretch and Dan Royce tipped in a missed shot in that time between when the clock shows 0.00 and when the buzzer actually goes off to tie the game and force overtime.
For all the back and forth of the second half, the overtime was nearly a stalemate as Blank scored the only point of the extra session on a free throw with 52 seconds left to give Old Tappan a 62-61 victory, its fourth straight.
“Obviously Mahwah had trouble against our pressure and that helped us change the tempo of the game. Before that, they were shooting the [heck] out of the ball,” said Old Tappan head coach Dennis Rossi. “Every game is like this it seems lately, but that’s four in a row for us now, I am happy with where we are at with just the one senior in the starting lineup.”
That one senior is Hagopian and he can be a tough matchup when the conditions are right. Hagopian, standing about 6-2, plays the No. 4 spot and if an opponent is going to protect the ball and pound it into the post, the Knights are at a disadvantage as only junior Peter Clark is a true post defender. But when the game opens up, Hagopian is really an athletic guard running the floor and it is tough for legitimate post players to chase him.
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| Max Blank made 8 of his 12 free throws, including the one that accounted for the only point of the overtime. |
As Mahwah started to taste a runaway when it opened that 10-point lead in the third quarter, it actually played right into Old Tappan’s hands. The Knights turned wholly to the press and the space that it opened up gave them the room to make their run.
Mahwah led 30-29 at halftime and pushed the lead to 43-33 on Charlie Pillari’s three-pointer with 1:44 to in the third quarter, but Old Tappan then put together the 13-0 spurt to take a 46-43 lead heading into the fourth. The final four points of that run came with less than one second to go on the clock and all came from the free throw line. Stankiewicz was fouled going to the basket by Pillari and made his two free throws and Blank followed with the two technical foul shots after a Thunderbird was whistled for arguing the call..
“We blew a 10-point lead, we had the technical foul and we self-destructed. That was a four-point swing with less than a second left on the clock,” said Mahwah head coach Jim Taranto, Sr. “We did a lot of nice things tonight, but when we had the 10-point lead we didn’t close it out.”
Old Tappan’s advantage grew to seven points at 54-47 on a Hagopian putback with 4:37 left in regulation, but that was when Matherin heated up. He hit a three-pointer to bring the T-Birds to within 54-50, he hung in the air before nailing a foul line jumper to get his team within 55-52 and he made another trey with 50 seconds left to draw Mahwah within 59-57.
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| Dan Royce's putback with no time showing on the fourth quarter clock tied the game at 61. |
Ten seconds later, Matherin made a steal and set up Andrew Stieml on the fastbreak to tie that game at 59, but Blank’s two free throws with 7.5 second left looked as if they would give the Knights the win.
“I was nervous when I went to the line, but when I made them both I thought that would be enough to win it,” said Blank, one of three juniors in Old Tappan’s starting lineup. “But they came right back and hit the tiebreaker right in our face. It could have been a heartbreaker. It hurt and we did not want to play overtime, but we had to keep our composure.”
The sequence that almost broke OT’s heart started with two seconds left in the fourth quarter with the Knights up two. Off an inbounds play, the T-Birds got the ball into the corner to Stieml, whose shot was long, but Royce cleaned up the offside rebound and barely beat the buzzer to tie the game at 61 and send it to overtime.
Both teamd left the door open in the extra session. Old Tappan had the first possession, it lasted 1:20 and ended in a missed shot. Mahwah’s first four possessions ended in three missed shots, including one chippy, and Old Tappan was just 1 of 3 from the free throw line, which left Mahwah with one last chance.
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| Bryan Stankiewicz scored 7 points in Old Tappan's 13-0 third quarter spurt that wiped out a 10-point Mahwah lead. |
Down one with two seconds to go, Mahwah again took the ball out on the side and worked a play with Royce running off a screen for a backside lob. Royce got a shot off, but his flip at the basket bounced off at the buzzer.
Royce and Matherin each scored 13 points to lead Mahwah and Royce added 12 rebounds. Pillari and Connor Hartigan each finished with 8 points, Stieml and Matt Defreese had 6 apiece and Phil DeLoof added five for the T-Birds, who fell to 5-4 with the loss and just about out of the running for a spot in the Bergen County Jamboree.
“Now we just have to make sure that we are .500 for the [state tournament] cutoff,” said Taranto, who has Bergenfield, Ramsey and a trip to unbeaten Pascack Hills coming up. “None of them are going to be easy and this loss puts that much pressure on the next one.”
Old Tappan improved to 5-5 with is fourth straight win. Although the Knights aren’t going to the Jambo after making it to the semifinals last year, things could be a lot worse for a team that returned just two players with any varsity experience and started with five losses in its first six games.
“It was a tough way to start, but we’ve worked hard to get back to where we are. We deserve to be here and we can’t stop now,” said Hagopian, “That’s four in a row now that we’ve won and we are looking forward to a big game on Friday at [Northern] Highlands. They beat us the first time so we have plenty of motivation.”
Blank led all scorers with 18 points and the Knights had three players finish in double digits. Hagopian finished with 16, Stankiewicz had 13 and Michael Soumas hit three of his first four shot in the first half, including a three-pointer, to account for his 7 points. Kyle Jansen scored all 4 of his points in the fourth quarter and Casey Miller also finished with 4.
Blank also made 8 of his 12 free throws and the Knights were 15 of 20 from the line as a team, while Mahwah was 2 of 6 from the line as a team and did not shoot a free throw in the fourth quarter or overtime.
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