BJ Cunningham was one of three double digit scorers for St. Mary, which became the first NJIC team to win the BIT with a 53-50 victory over Westwood in the final.

MONTVALE -- After losing in the opening round of the Bergen County Jamboree and then at the buzzer in the NJIC championship game, St. Mary has been somewhat snake-bitten in tournament play in the last couple of weeks. With the change of format instituted last season that allows those teams vanquished in the opening round of the Jambo to parachute into the BIT, the Gaels had another chance even if not all of them were fully aware of their next opportunity.

“We got beat in the first round [of the Jambo] by a tough Group 4 in Hackensack and the kids didn’t even know that we were in The BIT until I told them the next day and showed them the bracket,” said St. Mary head coach Brian Gaccione. “I said, ‘Hey, we are in this tournament, we start fresh and let’s try to win it.”

The effort paid off on Saturday afternoon, the extra effort actually, as St. Mary needed overtime to finally douse red-hot Westwood with a 53-50 victory at St. Joseph Regional High School in Montvale. In the process, St. Mary became the first NJIC school to ever win The BIT.

“It feels good. It’s the first time an NJIC team has ever won it and it is the first time St. Mary’s has ever been in it and won it,” said BJ Cunningham, the lone senior on the Gaels' roster. “It was a good experience to play some Big North schools and win it.”

It was a 3-point contest early as four of St. Mary’s five starters made a first quarter trey, Westwood made three of them and the lead see-sawed until the Gaels scored the final five points of the opening quarter to take a 16-12 lead. They held a 29-28 lead at halftime and stormed out of the gates in the second half with an 8-2 run to take their largest lead of the game, 37-30.

Joe Cerritelli scored a game-high 22 points for Westwood.

Westwood, which came in having won 10 of its previous 11 games and having beat three Jambo drop-downs in its first three BIT games, was going nowhere. The last of Sean Morrison’s three 3-pointers got the Cardinals to within 39-37 and Jack Walsh’s layup off a backdoor cut kept them within the same margin, 41-39, heading into the fourth quarter.

Neither team had more than a 5-point lead in the final period and that belonged to Westwood (14-9) after a 9-0 run, all on 3-pointers by Mike Rinaldi and two by Joe Cerritelli to go up 48-43 with 5:22 remaining. But that was the last of the Cardinals’ scoring in regulation and they made just one field goal in overtime as St. Mary buckled down on the defensive end.

“Energy is a big part of the game and we had to play harder on defense. Our shots were falling the whole time, so we had to make it work and that was on the defensive end,” said St. Mary’s Matt Kennedy, the junior forward who finished with a double-double (12 points, 11 rebounds) and was named the game’s MVP. “When they hit tough shots we had to go right back at them and hit tough shots as well. They’d make a run, we’d make a run and that is just how it is. That is basketball and we had to make the last run.”

St. Mary got back even with a 5-0 run that consisted of three free throws and Cunningham’s pull-up jumper that tied the game at 48 with 3:37 left and the score remained that way until Cunningham made two free throws 16 seconds into overtime to give St. Mary the lead for good.

It was a little sloppy down the stretch as St. Mary made just one of four free throw attempts in the final 1:14 with the chance to put the game away and, other than Walsh’s steal and lay-in with 1:20 to go, Westwood just could get anything to fall down the stretch.

Tymir Reaves finished with 11 points for St. Mary, which impoved to 19-8 on the season.

Cerritelli lead all scorers with 22 points and Walsh also finished in double figures with 14. Morrison (9 points) and Rinaldi (3 points) did all of their damage from behind the arc and Nick Klein made two free throws of the Cardinals, for Westwood, which was a combined 3-6 from the line in the game but did not shoot a single free throw after halftime. The Cardinals fell to 14-9 on the season and will try to jump right back onto the winning wagon in the opening round of the North 1, Group 2 state sectional playoffs where, as the No. 7 seed, they will host No. 10 Jefferson in the opening round on Thursday.

Cunningham (13 points), Kennedy and Tymir Reaves (11 points) led a balanced St. Mary attack that saw seven different players make at least one field goal. Ilan Santos (6 points) made all four of his free throws, and Merrick Olkowski (5 points) and Jesse Calfayan each made 3-pointers during the Gaels’ first quarter barrage. As a team, St. Mary went 11-for-16 from the stripe and improved to 19-8 on the season that still has legs.

Gaccione scheduled two independent games in preparation for the upcoming state tournament, which gets underway in Non-Public North B for the fifth-seeded Gaels next Monday on the road against No. 4 Morristown-Beard.

With the later rounds of the Jambo now solidly reserved for the power parochials and the public school having a transformative season, The BIT has brought the fun and unpredictability back to Bergen County hoops. Westwood was a No. 4 seed in the four-team Monument Region and St. Mary swooped in to win the Mall Region that was an even mix of NJIC and Big North participants.

Run it back and it might be a totally different Final 4 in the BIT, while in the Jambo the results would most likely be unchanged. Close games were hard to find and from the Round of 16 on there were two “upsets,” both by big parochial schools. No. 10 Paramus Catholic pulled off an amazing comeback against No. 7 Teaneck in the Round of 16 and No. 3 St. Joseph Regional knocked off No. 2 Ridgewood in the semifinals. Cinderella slippers certainly don’t fit either of those two programs.

“This BIT is going to allow us to play close to 30 games, which is crazy and great because it does not count against the 24 [games] you are allowed,” said Gaccione, whose scheduled West Milford and Don Bosco Prep this week, which will make 29 games played heading into the states. “We got four games out of it all against good competition We are fortunate and happy.”

FOR MORE PHOTOS FROM THIS EVENT PLEASE CLICK HERE. TO BUY A COLLECTOR'S PRINT OF THIS STORY PLEASE VISIT 4-FeetGrafix.com.