Zach Schweid scored a team-high 19 points and assisted on the game-winning basket as NV/Demarest opened its season with a 57-56 win over Pascack Hills.

DEMAREST -- The final shot of a one-point game went up from the corner, but it would take an abnormally long time for the outcome to be decided. Pascack Hills' 3-pointer hit the rim and bounced straight up. Then it hit the rim again and bounced straight up and one more time it did the same thing. The game hung in the balance and physics determined the winner.

Instead of falling through the hoop, the last bounce pushed the ball out of the cylinder and it was corralled by Northern Valley/Demarest’s Brandon Srebnik, who grabbed the rebound and ran up the floor to burn off the rest of the clock in a fun-to-watch 57-56 victory in the season opener on Thursday night.

“I thought it was going in three different times. They had one earlier just like that and it did,” said Demarest head coach Pat Gabriele, whose team was able to keep the ball of the hands of Pascack Hills’ two top scorers on the final possession. ”We did not want [Nick] Lukmann or [David] Weidmuller to beat us. If another kid beats us then my hats off to them, but Lukmann was making some crazy shots so we said, ‘Know where he is and contest out.”

That Demarest was protecting a lead in the waning seconds was thanks to a set play called in a timeout with the Norsemen in possession at the other end of the floor. With 40 seconds left, down by a point and with the ball out on the side, Zach Schweid waited for Srebnik to use a couple of sturdy screens set by Jake Goldenberg and Matt Slowikowski to get open for the lob pass that turned into the game-winning points.

“Coach Gabriele made a phenomenal call at the end to get me free for that layup to win it. It was a beautiful pass by Zach [Schweid],” said Srebnik. “We always laugh about it in practice because I always miss the lob when we throw it, but when we ran it tonight and he threw it to me and I didn’t go right up with it. I came down first and made the layup. It was exactly how we drew it up. It was perfect.”

Nick Lukmann finished with 19 points to lead Pascack Hills.

Neither team got the chance to ease into the new season as first up was this league game between two teams with the right to have lofty expectations. Demarest graduated zero seniors from last year’s team and Pascack Hills has its winning tradition and Lukmann and Weidmuller, two wing players with size, and Austin Ellman, a capable point guard who transferred in from Millburn.

It was back-and-forth all night with the score dictated by which team could impose its tempo for any stretch of time. With Pascack Hills’ patience on offense and its zone on the other end, the Broncos benefitted when it was a possession-by-possession, half-court game. Demarest likes to push the pace and score in bunches with Schweid and Srebnik, dangerous in transition and going to the basket.

Schweid tied Lukmann for game-high honors with 19 points and Srebnik added 16 and none of those 35 points came from behind the arc. Forced 3s in the half-court and fading to the arc on the break were out, while the Euro step was in.

“We try to play fast and we try to get easy baskets. We tried pick up the pressure on defense and try to make them play our pace because we are better when the game is like that,” said Schweid. “There is definitely a rivalry here. We have played [Pascack Hills] the last two years, they were all big games and there is a lot of energy, it’s a big rivalry, it’s a big win and a great way to start the season.”

The largest lead of the first quarter was Pascack Hills by five on two occasions before it settled for a 14-11 lead after one. Neither team had more than a four-point lead in the second quarter with Demarest holding a 31-29 lead at the break. The first real run that had the potential to decide the game was a 10-2 Pascack Hills spurt that started with a Ben Stahl 3-pointer 1:36 into the second half and ended with another Stahl 3 with 4:09 left in the third quarter that put the Broncos up 42-35 and forced a Demarest timeout.

Senior Brandon Srebnik going in for the game-winning layup for Demarest.

The Norsemen responded as Schweid scored five points in a 7-0 run that got Demarest right back even at 42.

“We got right back in the game pretty quickly. There was no panic and that, I think, is the advantage of having the entire team back,” said Gabriele. “No seniors a year ago, so these are the guys that were in these positions a year ago. The kids knew they had been there before and it was one possession at a time until we could get it going.”

Still, Pascack Hills scored six of the final eight points of the quarter. Tyler Lazarus set up Lukmann for a mid-range jumper that beat the buzzer to make it 48-44 and Lukmann scored off the offensive glass to open the fourth quarter scoring and give the Broncos a 50-44 lead and Stahl made it a nine-point spread with a 3 from the corner.

Again, Demarest answered and this time it was 12-2 stretch that began and ended with a pull-up jumper by Schweid and ended with his lob pass to Srebnik for the game-winning points before the Norsemen sweated out the last few bounces on the rim to get their first win under their belts.

Nick Gorenstein scored all 12 of his points from behind the 3-point line and joined Schweid and Srebnik in double figures. Goldenberg added 7 points and Slowikowski’s first quarter 3-pointer rounded out the scoring for Demarest.

Lukmann (19 points) and Stahl (14) led the way for Pascack Hills. Weidmuller scored 7 of his 9 points in the first quarter, Ellman added 8, Tyler Wernick made a couple of second quarter field goal and Lazarus added a field goal for the Broncos (0-1).

“We didn’t show any patience on offense and that hurt us and we struggled to get back on defense too many times. We had good looks when we moved the ball around and were patient, but too much forcing things. I liked the hustle, we played some inspiring defense at times, but it’s a shame. We got the last shot we wanted but it went in and out” said Pascack Hills head coach Paul D’Errico. “We don’t have a lot of varsity experience and I think that showed today. I think when we get a few games under our belt, hopefully, we can get it together.”

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