Monday,
February 15, 2016
By Cory K. Doviak
NJS.com Editorial Director
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Nick Guillemain's 3-point play with 40 seconds left gave Pascack Hills its first lead of the game and the eighth-seeded Cowboys held on for a 45-43 upset of top-seeded Ramapo in the Bergen County Jamboree quarterfinals on Sunday. |
TEANECK – By its own admission, Pascack Hills was getting thrown around a little bit by the physical strength of top-seeded Ramapo in the early going of Sunday’s quarterfinal finale in the Bergen County Jamboree.
“They beat us up in the first half,” said Pascack Hills head coach Kevin Kirkby. “We spent the last couple of days saying we have to win the battle of the paint. They outwork work, they out-physical you and we tried to force them to shoot the ball, but even when they were taking shots they were outworking us and getting rebounds.”
By bullying its way into the paint, hitting the glass and knocking down shots when Pascack Hills’ defense was forced to collapse, Ramapo took a lead that steadily expanded to as many as 11 points in the first half as to as many as 13 more than halfway through the third quarter.
But there were signs. Foul trouble was starting to creep up on the No. 1 seed and Pascack Hills knows how to run an offense, exploit mismatches when they show up and flat-out shoot the ball. And in the final minute-and-a-half of the third quarter, it all started to come together.
Evan Schumer, he who hit the 25-foot game-winner at the buzzer against Northern Valley/Old Tappan last Sunday in the Round of 16, hit a 3-pointer from the corner off a drawn-up inbounds play and then did it again, driving up the floor on the right wing and burying a 20-footer to beat the third quarter horn.
The chase was officially on and at the finish line, it was the Cowboys that still had something left in the tank in a stunning 45-43 upset at the Stratis Arena inside the Rothman Center on the campus of Fairleigh Dickinson University. Pascack Hills, the No. 8 seed, will play No. 4 St. Joseph Regional in all Montvale semifinal next Sunday.
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Matt Latka had 12 points to top Ramapo. |
“This is a great feeling and I just want to keep pushing,” said Schumer. “Beside the gameplan, we look at every team the same. It is going to be another battle, but that is what we do. We battle.”
Pascack Hills had to battle all night against Ramapo, which established all of its considerable advantages right from the jump. Senior Ryan Curtiss turned an offensive rebound into a 3-point play to break the only tie of the game (2-2), senior point guard Joe O’Hagan flip in a lay-up to make it 9-4 and senior Matt Latka drained a 3-pointer from the top of the key to give Ramapo a 16-8 lead before it settled for a 17-10 advantage after the first quarter.
If Ramapo was going to keep up a 68-points-in-the-game pace, then Pascack Hills would certainly have been sunk. There was no way the Green Raiders’ defense was going to give up 69, so the Cowboys needed to slow their opponent down, which they did shortly after O’Hagan spun in the lane to give the Raiders a 21-10 lead with 5:24 left in the first half. Ramapo scored just four more points in the second quarter and an 11-4 run to close the half kept the Cowboys within striking range. Schumer’s 3 got Pascack Hills to within 23-21 before Latka made two free throws to give Ramapo a 25-21 halftime advantage.
Ramapo quickly bumped its lead back up to the comfortable range with a 11-2 spurt to start the second half. Latka’s triple from the wing made it 32-23 and his putback of his own missed shot gave the Raiders their largest lead of the game, 36-23, with 2:57 to go in the third.
But that was when Pascack Hills shot itself right back in. Steve Steiger’s lone field goal of the game was a big one, a 3-pointer from the wing that kicked off a 9-2 run to close the quarter. The last six of those points came from Schumer and when he hit the buzzer beater, the feeling of ‘here we go again,’ was definitely noticeable.
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Evan Schumer's 3-pointer to beat the third quarter buzzer seemed to turn the tide in Pascack Hills' favor. |
“We got down by [13 points] at one point and it was starting to slip away, but the tide totally turned at the end of the third quarter,” said Kirkby. “When Schumer made another one, that was pretty nuts.”
With Pascack Hills firmly back in it, it became a game of execution down the stretch and the Cowboys, using the added space of the collegiate floor, did it just a little bit better and used all of its arsenal to keep the pressure on. Jason Shill’s lone field goal of the night was clutch, a 3 that got the Cowboys to within 40-35 and Nick Guillemain slashed to the basket to make it 42-29 with 2:55 to play.
Ramapo was answering, but on a couple of occasions its aggressiveness worked against it as Latka was called for three second half charges, two of them in the fourth quarter. With a minute to go and still down by three, Pascack Hills point guard Evan Lazarus, whose only two field goals came in the final 3:38, called his own number. With a height advantage and with his defender carrying four fouls, Lazarus, the 6-foot-2 point guard, got himself on the low block and got himself a layup off a lob entry from Guillemain.
“We have a plan for me to post up and you can’t teach height. I am taller than most of the guys that guard me and we try to exploit mismatches,” said Lazarus. “Just working out of the post is something we do every day in practice, so it was nothing new to me.”
Ramapo still had the lead and had the ball and was running time off the clock before a turnover changed things for good. Guillemain picked up a loose ball and drove it straight to the hoop. As a bonus, he was fouled on the play, made the free throw and sent O’Hagan to the bench with his fifth personal. When Guillemain completed the 3-point play with 40 seconds to go, Pascack Hills had its first lead of the night at 44-42.
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Joe O'Hagan had 10 points for Ramapo, which fell to 19-3 on the season. |
The teams then traded one-for-two trips to the line and Ramapo, still down 2, called a timeout with possession with 12.4 seconds to go only to turn the ball over again. The Raiders were granted a temporary reprieve when Pascack Hills missed the front end of a one-and-one with 5.4 seconds left, but Ramapo’s final effort, a desperation floater, was challenged by Kevin Michael and fell short as Pascack Hills (18-1) advanced.
It was a Jambo classic, but that was little consolation for Ramapo, which had its 18-game win streak snapped by Hackensack on Thursday and has now lost two in a row. Latka (12 points), O’Hagan (10 points) and Curtiss (10 points) all finished in double figures. Keith Woetzel added 6, Chris Gordon and Frankie Aiello each scored a pair and Jason Oppler made a free throw for the Green Raiders, who fell to 19-3 on the season. Ramapo was 11 of 17 as a team from the free throw line.
Schumer led all scorers with 18 points, but he did not score in the fourth quarter as Pascack Hills showed its array of options. Guillemain had 6 of his 15 in the final period, Lazarus scored all 4 of his points in the final 3:38, Steiger and Shill had their moments with their respective 3-points and Zach Broadman’s first quarter putback accounted for the other two points for Pascack Hills, which is off to the semifinals for the first time since 2009 when it was the No. 1 seed and was upset by St. Joseph Regional in the Final 4. This time, Pascack Hills will be the decided underdog.
“No matter what happens from here on out it has been a success,” said Lazarus. “But I would love to beat St. Joe’s and have a shot at winning it all because I really think that we can now that the No. 1 seed is out.”
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