January
29, 2007
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| Corey Kearney's steal and layup with 5:44 to go in the game got Queen of Peace even for the first time and the Griffins pulled out a 45-40 win over Garfield. | |
PARAMUS – When Queen of Peace is playing its best basketball, the Golden Griffins are playing a 90-foot game, pressuring the ball all over the court, forcing turnovers and getting out in the fastbreak. Only problem was, underdog Garfield was having none of it on Sunday in the opening round of the Bergen County Jamboree.
The Boilermakers, the second lowest seed in the this year’s Jambo, came in with a gameplan drawn up by head coach Chris Annibal and for 27 minutes, Garfield worked it to perfection.
Garfield was intent on taking care of the basketball, limiting its turnovers and Queen of Peace’s possessions and open floor opportunities. In an up-and-down game, Garfield knew it would have no chance and it instead chose the opposite path. The Boilermakers took the lead right out of the gate when Kenny Jenkins hit a jumper from the corner 40 seconds in and Garfield held that lead all the way into the fourth quarter.
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| Tomas Delacruz led Garfield with 14 points and his basket with 2:44 to go gave the Boilermakers their final lead at 40-38. |
But it takes a lot of energy to work that gameplan and Q of P kept coming. After trailing by as many as 10 points in the first half, the Golden Griffins chipped away until they could turn the pace of play in their favor, which finally happened in the fourth quarter.
Corey Kearney, who had four of his five steals in the first four minutes of the final quarter, made a steal and a layup to get Queen of Peace even for the first time in the game with 5:42 remaining and the Griffins made the crucial plays down the stretch in a hard-fought 45-40 win.
“They are very disciplined on offense and they were able to hold the ball a little longer than I wanted them to and I think my kids got frustrated by that,” said QP head coach Bill Schoener, whose team, the 13th seed, will take on No. 4 Don Bosco Prep next weekend in the Round of 16. “For us to press and trap and play, we have to score. Because offensively we were such a mess for a while, we couldn’t get into any sort of trap or any sort of press.”
Queen of Peace’s offensive ‘mess’ had as much to do with Garfield’s shot selection, as looks at the basket came only after long deliberation in the motion offense. The Boilermakers led 15-8 after the first quarter and were up by seven when Queen of Peace finally served notice that it was not going to go away.
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| Al-Don Muhammed's two free throws with 1:06 to play gave Q of P the lead for good. |
Kearney nailed a three-pointer with two seconds left in the first half to draw his team to within 22-18 at break and the Boilermakers were never able to stretch it back out. They led for the whole of the third quarter (never by more than four points) before upping the lead to 36-30 when Josue Castillo scored on a putback to start the fourth.
Queen of Peace then put together its best stretch of the game, ripping off an 8-0 run that covered 1:56. Javae Gilchrist set up Al-Don Mohammad for an easy basket; Kearney scored on a drive then had the steal and layup that tied the game at 36.
“When we turned up the defense, that was when I started to feel like we were going to win. When we were able to put steady pressure on them they got a little flustered,” said Kearney. “When we were playing man they would just hold the ball and do those handoffs. Once we started trapping, getting steals and taking chances, it worked.”
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| Erwin Cabrera played a solid game in leading Garfield's patient offense. |
Dwayne Moffatt’s only basket of the game, set up by a Kearney offensive rebound and a Gilchrist assist, with 5:00 to go gave Queen of Peace its first lead of the game at 38-36. Tomas Delacruz answered for Garfield, scoring off a well-designed in-bounds play and then gave his team its last lead when he turned a miss, kept alive on the glass by EJ Ogletree, into a 40-38 advantage with 2:44 to play.
After playing so well for 30 minutes, Garfield missed the front end of two one-and-one opportunities, both with the game tied at 40 after Mohammad had gotten QP even with a baseline drive.
“The last three or four minutes we made some mental errors. We missed a couple of front ends when we could have taken the lead. We’ve done those things all year so it was a little uncharacteristic of our team,” said Annibal. “But what I told my team was that I am more proud of them right now after this loss than I have been of them after any win we have had. We did not lose to any slouch, either. Queen of Peace is a team with a lot of talent."
At the other end, the Griffins scored all five of their points that turned into the winning margin from the free throw line as Mohammad and Gilchrist both made two free throws while in the bonus and Zaire Harris made another to make it a five-point game with :08 to go. After missing four of five free throws through the first three quarters, QP made five of seven in the fourth.
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| QP's Javae Gilchrist put the game out of reach with two free throws with 11 seconds left. |
Delacruz led Garfield with 14 points; Erwin Cabrera added 11 and Josue Castillo had nine. Jenkins' only points were the first two of the game, but he pulled down 6 rebounds and battled Bilal Dixon to an offensive draw.
Mohammad and Kearney each scored 13 points to top the Griffins and Gilchrist added nine to go along with 6 assists. Dixon, QP’s 6-7 center, scored only two points (albeit impressively with a two-handed follow up dunk in the first quarter), but he was dominant in other areas, pulling down a game-high 10 rebounds to go along with 7 blocked shots.
“They were so intent on taking Bilal Dixon out of the game that our guards were going to get opportunities. Thank God they were able to make their free throws,” said Schoener. “It’s a learning experience for our team. We still start two sophomores (Gilchrist and Moffatt), we are young except for Corey Kearney, so it is good to know that we will get another opportunity [next week] and hopefully get back here next year, too.”
FOR MORE PHOTOS OF THIS EVENT OR TO BUY A COLLECTOR'S PRINT OF THIS STORY, PLEASE VISIT 4FeetGrafix.com.
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