Tuesday, December 29, 2009

By Cory K. Doviak
NJS.com Editorial Director

Fillipe Fraga's dunk was the highlight of Garfield 67-54 win over Ridgefield Park in the Garfield Holiday Tournament final.

GARFIELD -- It's the kind of situation that a frontcourt player with the athletic ability to get to the rim, a player like Garfield center Fillipe Fraga, dreams of. Richie Colon had just dribbled through the screen that Fraga had set at the elbow and Fraga then trailed the play, making his way down the lane as the defense converged on Colon, who flipped up a shot in traffic. Everything went perfect from there as the ball took a high, soft bounce off the front of the rim and was sitting there, just waiting to be finished off.

“When every shot goes up on every play I am always looking to go up to the basket and get it,” said Fraga. “That was just the right time. My teammate missed it, but I had his back. I went up there and I dunked it, got the whole team pumped and that is what I am here to do.”

Fraga’s follow up slam, which came with 5:19 left in the third quarter, was not the most important basket of the game, but was the highlight of the Boilermakers’ impressive 67-54 win in the final of the Garfield Holiday Tournament. It’s only four games into the season, but Garfield has yet to lose and there is a genuine excitement around the program as it won its own holiday tournament title for the first time in 11 years.

Nelson Mendez finished with a team-high 22 points for Ridgefield Park, which suffered its first loss of the season.

“We’ve played [Ridgefield Park] in our Christmas Tournament in each of the last five years and this is the first time we were able to get a ‘W’. We played them two or three times in the final before this in then in either the first round or the consolation round and we were finally able to get it done,” said Garfield head coach Chris Annibal. “Our kids were hungry; we haven’t won it since ’98. It is nice to reach one of our early season goals and as the year turns forward we look toward the league and towards qualifying for the [Bergen County] Jamboree. There hasn’t been a Garfield team qualify for back-to-back Jamborees since ’98 and ’99, so that is the goal.”

With experience up front in Fraga and fellow senior Kamil Rutkowski, Garfield has one of the best frontcourts in the B-PSL, but its success hinges on the play of is other starters. Talent is not the problem, it is about youth as junior Richie Colon is joined in the backcourt by sophomore Jabar Drakeford and sophomore Josh LeClerc is the first guy off the bench. Freshman forward Damon Godbolt rounds out the starting five, but relative inexperience played no role on Monday night as the Boilermakers had it all working right from the opening tip.

Rutkowski scored five points in the first 3:13 of the game as Garfield jumped in front by a 7-0 score and he hit a three-pointer from the wing at the tail end of an offensive set when all five Boilermakers touched the ball to give his team a 16-4 with 1:13 left in the first quarter.

Richie Colon led the Garfield backcourt with 14 points.

Garfield led by double digits, 16-6, after the opening quarter and Ridgefield Park was able to cut its deficit back to single just three times the rest of the way, the last time when Nelson Mendez hit a free throw 1:52 into the second quarter that got the Scarlets to within 20-11. Fraga scored off a pretty feed from LeClerc the next time down the floor to push the lead back to 11 points and Garfield built its lead to as many as 17 points before settling for a 32-19 halftime advantage.

“I think…well, they kicked our butts. Let’s be honest. Our teams play each other five times in the summer, we scrimmage each other, we are familiar with each other and tonight was their night. They really played well,” said Ridgefield Park head coach Chris Gaskin. “Their big guys outplayed our big guys, their guards out-scrapped our guards and it was just Garfield’s night.”

Gaskin burned through three timeouts in the first quarter-and-a-half to try to wrest back the momentum, but Garfield refused to yield. It led 52-35 after three quarters and rolled to their fourth straight win to start the season.

Nathan Lopez scored 17 points for Ridgefield Park.

Rutkowski scored a game-high 25 points, Colon finished with 14 and Fraga and Godbolt each scored 10 as the Boilermakers put four of their five starters in double figures while Drakeford added 8. Rutkowski and Fraga also were imposing on the defensive end where they limited Ridgefield Park’s second chances.

“This guy [Fraga] and Kamil, they just allow us to gamble and get so aggressive defensively because they are not only there as a presence to block shots, but anything that came off the glass in the first half we rebounded and that was because of Fraga and Rutkowski,” said Annibal. “We try to take advantage of what our strengths are and that is athleticism and this year it is size as well. It’s never been size with one of my teams, it's always been a bunch of quick guards that could get out and do a number of different things, but this year we are able to be more aggressive on the perimeter because we have those two guys down low.”

To Ridgefield Park’s credit, it hustled right to the final whistle and snuck to within 12 points at 60-48 when Nathan Lopez hit a three-pointer with 3:34 to play in the game, but that is as close as the Scarlets could get in the second half.

Kamil Rutkowski scored a game-high 25 for Garfield, which is now 4-0 on the season.

Early foul trouble also hurt the Scarlets as Ahmed Gamea picked up two personal fouls in an 18-second span inside the game's first three minutes and Mendez picked up two in a 38-second span early in the second quarter. Gamea, who came to RP this season from Egypt, has been an early season surprise, but was held to five points on Monday, while Mendez kept himself on the floor and finished with a team-high 22. Lopez added 17, including three three-pointers.

The loss put an end to RP’s three-game winning streak to start the season, but replacing all five starters and having two league wins in the BCSL-American Division already in its pocket, overall it has been a solid start.

“We put ourselves in a tough spot in the beginning of the game and what are you going to do? But if you would have told me in November that we would win three of our first four games I would have taken it. That’s the bright side,” said Gaskin. “I think that after a game like this you can only get better. You have to learn from your mistakes and every team in our league was here tonight scouting and it is going to be tough. For our guys it’s time to check yourself and see what you are made of.”

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