Nick Lukmann was one of three double digit scorers for Pascack Hills, which advanced to the North 1, Group 2 state sectional semifinals with a 48-38 win over Dumont..
DUMONT – After not playing high school basketball at all last season Pascack Hills senior Austin Ellman stepped right into a glaring void. With two experienced wing players in seniors Nick Lukmann and David Weidmuller, all Ellman needed to do was bring the ball up the floor, get it to his scorers in the right spots and limit turnovers and the Broncos would be an immediate success.
It was never going to be that easy.
Pascack Hills stumbled out of the gate. It was 0-3, 1-4 and 2-6 before the calendar turned over into 2024 as the Broncos struggled to figure out the formula.
“My role from the beginning of the year has changed tremendously. I was a passer, trying to be the assist guy, but as the season has gone on I have become more comfortable taking more shots,” said Ellman. “I think that is a big part of what is going on now.”
What is going on is that Pascack Hills is one of the hottest teams in Bergen County. The Broncos are 14-3 in the new year, they won the Bergen Invitational Tournament last weekend with a win over Dwight Morrow, a team that beat them earlier in the season, and they are one of four teams left standing in the North 1, Group 2 state sectional tournament.
Using a tightly-packed zone that gave No. 4 seed Dumont all kinds of trouble, fifth-seeded Pascack Hills recorded a 48-38 win in the sectional quarterfinals on Monday night in Dumont. Ellman, Lukmann and Weidmuller all scored in double figures, combining for 39 points; one more than their opponent’s total, with Ellman leading the way with 14.
Dumont's Freddy Hebst finished his standout career with a game-high 22 points.
“We were inexperienced at the beginning of the year, but you can see that our guards have gotten so much better since the beginning of the season,” said Pascack Hills head coach Paul D’Errico. “Even when we were 2-6 we were saying that we were getting better and better and the kids were buying into it as well. As the season has progressed we have gotten more and more confident and you can see the difference. We are a different team.”
While Pascack Hills has a championship pedigree (it won four straight state sectional titles in the 2010s under Kevin Kirkby), Dumont is at the peak of it resurgence. All but one player in its rotation, Nick Giangregorio, is a senior and the Huskies won a game in the Bergen County Jamboree this season for the first time since 2002 with 1,000 point scorer Freddy Herbst leading the way.
Dumont, which beat Pascack Hills early in the season in Montvale, was the No. 4 seed, had the home game and the lead, 13-10, after the opening period. Herbst, who was the obvious focus of Pascack Hills’ saggy zone, found a way through it first quarter when he scored 8 of his game-high 22 points.
Undaunted, Pascack Hills stayed in its zone, dared other shooters to make jump shots and stayed out of foul trouble in the process. The Broncos took the lead on five straight points from Lukmann, a 3 from the wing and a long 2 from the corner, early in the second period and held it the rest of the way while limiting Dumont to just 25 points over the final three quarters.
“The zone has worked out great for us. It’s been our go-to defense and we have a lot of guys with some size that can move,” said Lukmann. “This game it was big for us because we wanted to keep the ball out of Freddy [Herbst’s] hands. Play good defense and rebound; those were our two main goals coming into this game.”
David Weidmuller finished with 12 points for Pascack Hills, which will play top-seeded Ramsey in the semifinals on Wednesday.
Pascack Hills led by as many as 7 in the first half after Ellman’s coast-to-coast layup with 2:38 left in the second quarter before settling for a 25-20 lead at the break. Herbst scored 8 points in the third quarter to keep his team in the game. His bucket from in close with 1:56 left in the third quarter had Dumont to within a point before Weidmuller’s conventional 3-point play gave the Broncos a 35-31 edge heading into the fourth quarter.
The first 2:13 of the final period rolled by without a point scored, but Ellman’s driving layup kicked off a 13-2 run that put the game away.
Herbst finished his high school career with a game-high 22 points. Jackson Angeles scored all 9 of his points from behind the arc. Dino Vasilakis made two free throws and a field goal and Giangregorio’s second quarter 3-pointer rounded out the scoring for Dumont, which finished the season with a 16-9 record.
Pascack Hills is now 16-9, also, but it is not done yet. The Broncos will visit top seed and defending champion Ramsey in the semifinals on Wednesday.
“When you look back at the start of the season ‘til now you can really see how much chemistry we have built during the course of the year,” said Weidmuller. “It’s kept on building and we are at a point now that we feel like we can finally beat all of these teams.”
Ramsey is 2-0 against Pascack Hills this year, but past performance may not be indicative of future results.
“We definitely have to be aggressive. We need to make the game ugly and try to speed them up a little bit,” said Lukmann. “They are good, we know that, and we have to disrupt their actions and come out hot. A couple of points in transition would help for sure.”
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