February
2, 2007
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| Sam Hagopian, Old Tappan's lone senior starter, hit a three-pointer with 41 seconds left in the game to lift his team to a 55-50 win over Demarest and into a spot in the state tourney. | |
OLD TAPPAN -- Because both teams are actually a part of the same school district, because both have the Northern Valley prefix before their names and because they are separated by just a few miles, there is a built in rivalry. Pile on the fact that both Old Tappan and Demarest needed a win to make the state tournament, 'wild' would be the best adjective to describe the atmosphere on Thursday night.
Demarest brought an entire student section with it and they had plenty to cheer about as the Norseman got out to a 17-6 lead, putting the home team and its supporters on the defensive from the get-go.
“They came out of the gates on fire, they couldn’t miss,” said Sam Hagopian, Old Tappan’s senior forward. “They were unconscious. Four of their five kids hit everything they threw up there. There wasn’t really much we could do but hang tough, play defense and not hang our heads.”
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| Alex Rothman going in for two of his 13 first half points that spurred Demarest to the early lead. |
Old Tappan weathered the early barrage, tightened up its defense in the second half, held Demarest without a point over the final 3:14 and made a string of key plays in the final minute to squeak out a 55-50 win. With that, Old Tappan improved to 8-7 on the season and qualified for state tournament while leaving the Norsemen on the outside looking in at the postseason.
“We were going to schedule a game for Saturday [on the cutoff off for the state tournament], but our coach told us that if we didn’t win these two games that we didn’t deserve to play on Saturday,” said OT’s Max Blank. “We beat Fair Lawn on Tuesday and then came back in our home gym against our rivals and got in. It’s a great feeling and a relief.”
The Knights had trailed by as many as 15 points, 29-14, three minutes into the second quarter, but started to get back in the game with an 11-0 run to close the first half. Blank hit a three-pointer to open the second half and OT held two leads in the third quarter, both times by a single point and for a combined 54 seconds.
Demarest surged back to take an eight-point lead at 44-36 with 1:13 left in the third quarter when Frank Montagne hit a long jumper with his foot on the line before Blank hit another three to get OT within 44-39 heading into the fourth.
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| Max Blank made two technical free throws with 22 seconds left to give Old Tappan a three-point lead. |
The game was tied at 46 and 48 and Demarest went ahead, 50-48, when Steve Liparini dropped one in from the baseline. That shot came with 3:14 to play in the game and it represented the final points the Norseman would score.
In fact, neither team registered a point over the next 2:37 and Old Tappan was still down two with 41 seconds left when Hagopian, the lone returning starter from last year’s state sectional championship team and the Knights’ lone senior starter, got the ball on the wing some 20 feet from the basket. He never hesitated in taking the shot that would probably decide his team’s fate for this season.
“If he has a good look, he’s got a lot of brass and I’ll give him that shot. He’s the leader of the team,” said OT head coach Dennis Rossi, whose team has rebounded from a 1-5 start to make the states. “He had a good look. As long as he didn’t force it, I could live with that shot either way.”
Hagopian placed it right in the middle of the net to give his team the lead for good.
“Once I caught the ball out there, [the defender] was giving me space. There was six or seven feet between us. If he wasn’t going to play me, I knew I was going to step up and shoot it,” said Hagopian. “I got my feet together and took the shot, and as soon as I did I knew it was all net. I knew it was money as soon as it left my hand.”
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| Frank Montagne led Demarest with 16 points. |
Demarest’s next possession ended in a traveling violation and Blank was then fouled after taking the inbounds. He missed the front end of the one-and-one only to be given another chance when Bryan Stankiewicz came up with a hustling offensive rebound. He got the ball back out to Blank at the top of the key and, now in desperation mode, Demarest committed an intentional foul.
“I was basically trying to do whatever I could to help because I played so bad in the first half,” said Stankiewicz, who made another key fourth quarter play when, after Demarest missed an open layup, he came down and made a three-pointer for a five-point swing, the margin of victory. “I had to step up my game after coach gave me a little halftime speech about my defense and I just wanted to show him that I was out there to do whatever it took to get this win.”
Blank made both technical free throws, Hagopian hit two more on the extra possession and, 20 seconds later, the home crowd was on the floor in celebration.
“This whole atmosphere, this whole environment, at this point in my life it is what I am living for,” said Hagopian. “Hitting the big shot, the crowd going wild, beating our rival, there is nothing quite like it. It’s surreal.”
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| OT's Bryan Stankiewicz made a fourth quarter 3-pointer and had a key offensive rebound to set up the game-clinching free throws. |
Hagopian led all scorers with 23 points, 14 of them in the first half to help his team survive the slow start. Blank scored 11 of his 15 in the second half, Stankiewicz had all five of his points in the fourth quarter, and the Knights also got contributions from Matt Bischoff (5 points), Steve Martinez (4 points) Michael Soumas (3 points) and Dom Musial, who provided interior defense off the bench.
Demarest, which had scheduled a game against Garfield for Saturday hoping that it would be the one to get it back to .500 on the cutoff date, instead fell to 6-9 on the season. The Norseman were led by Montagne’s 16 points and Alex Rothman scored all 13 of his points in the first half as Demarest ran out to the big lead. Liparini added nine points, Mike Olenick had seven, and Tyler Dito (3 points) and Zach Subarsky rounded out the scoring.
NOTES: Here is an interesting story that was passed along from last Tuesday night in Demarest. In a game that the Norsemen obviously had to have, Northern Highlands was leading by four points in the second half when Demarest called for a 30-second timeout.
The Demarest cheerleaders took the floor to do their thing, but were turned around by one of the referees and sent back to the stands. In addition, Demarest was slapped with a technical foul for delay of game because cheerleaders are not permitted to perform during 30-second timeouts, only full timeouts and between periods.
Instead of having possession of the ball down by four, Demarest instead saw Northern Highlands make the two technical free throws and then bang a three-pointer on the ensuing possession to take a nine-point lead, the same as the Highlanders’ eventual winning margin.
That is not to say that the Highlanders would not have won anyway, but an innocent mistake by a cheerleading team factoring into an otherwise close game? A head-scratcher of a call to say the least.
FOR MORE PHOTOS OF THIS EVENT OR TO BUY A COLLECTOR'S PRINT OF THIS STORY, PLEASE VISIT 4FeetGrafix.com.
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