Sunday,
March 13, 2016
By Matt Cohen
Special to NJS.com
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St. Anthony won its 28th state championship and its first since 2012 with a 53-37 win over Roselle Catholic on Saturday in Toms River. |
TOMS RIVER - Jagan Mosely has made plenty of history at St. Anthony since his first game when he became the first freshman to start right from day one for the Friars in more than a decade.
Since then, Mosely and his classmates have had plenty to be proud of during their time at the Jersey City school - four sectional titles and 106 wins over their four years.
But without another victory, these seniors were going to make the kind of history Mosely wanted absolutely no part of - the infamy of being a part of the only senior class to leave St. Anthony without an outright state championship.
With nine points in what could have been the final 5:24 of a stellar career, Mosely instead helped write the latest championship chapter in St. Anthony’s storied history.
A determined Mosely led the charge for the Friars, who scored 13 of the game’s final 14 points to pull away from and defeat Roselle Catholic, 53-37 in the Non-Public B championship game at PineBelt Arena.
Mosely, who was on the floor for all three heartbreaking state final losses to Roselle Catholic in the prior three seasons, finished with a game-high 16 points. Juvaris Hayes had 13 points, while Idris Joyner and R.J. Cole added eight and seven respectively to give St. Anthony its 28th state championship and first since 2012.
“We compared ourselves to the 2008 team because we were in the same position,” said Mosely. “We don’t want to make history like that. We want to make positive history, not negative history.”
Leading by as many as 16, St. Anthony (30-0) saw the lead shrink to four after Matt Bullock’s old-fashioned 3-point play. But unlike the prior three finals defeats to the Lions, the Friars never let this lead slip away.
Asante Gist, a member of the first two Roselle Catholic state title teams and who played at Marist last season, buried a 3-pointer from the corner - his lone field goal of the day, to push the lead back up to seven. Mosely followed with a trey of his own on the next possession to make a 10-point game, then delivered the knockout punch - a drive to basket to make it 48-36 with 2:25 left in the game.
“We just needed to stay calm. We had to remember that we were still winning the game and we were always winning the game,” Mosely said. “So we wanted to stay calm and we stayed out on top.”
“I think the fourth quarter was just a microcosm of the majority of the game where we simply just didn’t execute the way we have hoped,” Roselle Catholic coach Dave Boff said. “We weren’t moving the ball, we weren’t cutting the way we wanted to. Certainly some of that is a credit to St. Anthony’s defense, but in a game like this you've got to execute a little better than the way we did.”
Despite having a size disadvantage at virtually every spot on the floor, St. Anthony was able to puzzle a high-powered Roselle Catholic offense with a large dose of a 2-3 zone to grab an early advantage.
St. Anthony, which never trailed, took the lead for good on Hayes’ 3-pointer with 2:56 left in the first quarter. While the zone enabled the Friars to get an early lead, it was its trademark full court press that allowed them pull away. Four second quarter steals led directly to six points as part of a 17-7 St. Anthony run to open the period.
“I think that’s (the defense) we’re most comfortable in,” said the 6-foot-3 Joyner, who has become St. Anthony’s main big man since Kaleb Bishop’s season ending injury. “We’re just so used to playing hard and smart, tough defense. We get up into our man and force a five second violation or a turnover.”
As a team, St. Anthony forced 11 turnovers and limited Roselle Catholic (22-8) to a nightmarish 29-percent (14-of-48) shooting night.
Bullock, the lone member of all four South B championship teams, finished his career with a team-high 10 points to go with seven rebounds. Sophomore Nazreon Reid had eight points and 14 rebounds, while Leondre Washington and Nate Pierre-Louis added nine and seven points respectively.
Hayes and Joyner had seven rebounds apiece and Cole, the lone junior starter for St. Anthony added six rebounds, five assists and three steals.
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