Joel Mathew's second quarter dunk got the home crowd fired up in NV/Demarest's 61-50 win over Wayne Hills in the opening round of the North 1, Group 3 state sectional tournament..
DEMAREST – Forty is the magic number when it comes to the success of the Northern/Valley Demarest boys basketball team.
"We are 15-0 this year when we keep our opponent to under 40 percent shooting," said Demarest head coach Pat Gabriele. "We've won 17 games total, so 40 percent is a good number and I think we did it again tonight."
It was too soon after the final buzzer to parse all the stats, but what needed no more further math was the effectiveness of Demarest's zone defense in the second half and especially in the fourth quarter.
The Norsemen held Wayne Hills to just one field goal and two total points through the first 6:45 of the final period to turn what was a tie game through the first 24 minutes into a 61-50 victory in the opening round of the North 1, Group 3 state sectional tournament. Demarest, the No. 5 seed, will visit No. 4 Montville in the quarterfinal round on Monday.
"That was all the coaches. Our two assistant coaches [Ed Rendzio and Brian Gelanius] told us to go into the zone and that really stagnated them and made them start to shoot more 3s," said Anthony Bernardez, Demarest's senior point guard. "We kind of kept them out of the paint and that was to our advantage, really."
North 1, Group 3 is a traditionally loaded bracket and it speaks to its strength top to bottom when Wayne Hills is the No. 12 seed. The Patriots have dealt with more than their share of injury and illness this season, but were as close to full strength as they could be on Friday night. They never let the Norsemen get out of sight and when they threatened to the Patriots reeled them back in every time throgh the first three quarters.
Demarest held a 12-10 lead after one quarter and Five straight points by Julien Gorenstein and a pull up jumper in the lane by Bernardez gave the home team a 17-10 advantage, but a 3-pointer by Andrew Castillo and a Brooklyn Jelinsky layup off a steal and assist by Justin Graves quickly closed the gap and Wayne Hills trailed by just 26-21 at the half.
Wayne HIlls junior Brooklyn Jelinsky led all scorers with 23 points.
Demarest led by eight points on two different occasions in the third quarter, the first time at 31-23 after a personal 5-0 run by Gorenstein and then at 33-25 after a Jake Schweid drive finish with 5:28 left in the period, but Wayne Hills scrambled all the way back to tie it at 39 and it was 41-41 after Chemoh St. Paul scored on the fastbreak for the points of the period.
Gorenstein, who led Demarest with 23 points, scored off a Bermudez dish 12 seconds into the fourth quarter to give his team the lead back for good. He scored 9 points in the period-opening 15-2 run that titled the game in the Norsemen's favor for good. Gorenstein and Schweid (18 points) have been Demarest's leading scorers all season long, but the list of offensive contributors does not end there. Senior Joel Mathew (14 points) made it three in double figures and it was his second quarter alley-oop dunk that got the ample student section involved early.
"The play is called 2-up. We ran it perfectly [in practice] yesterday and we executed it again right there," said Mathew. "I always try to work on my bounce just for those kind of moments because those energy shifts can change the entire momentum of the game."
Bernardez was also a key as he made a couple of field goals, handed out 5 assists, limited his turnovers and was confident with the ball down the stretch as Wayne Hills started gambling late when it ran out of other options.
"I thought the role guys did an awesome job tonight. Even if it doesn't show up in the scoring, rebounding the basketball. Anthony made a layup [late in the third quarter] that was big for us at the time; it gave us a [41-39] lead. I thought it was a great collective effort," said Gabriele, whose team is now 18-9 on the season. "I thought we played about as solid a game defensively as we have in a while."
Jake Schweid and Demarest will visit No. 4 Montville in the quarterfinals.
Wayne Hills was led by Jelinsky's game-high 23 points. The crafty junior who is all elbows, pump fakes and shooting range, missed time this season with a broken foot. He will be one of the top returning offensive threats in North Jersey next year. Castillo (11 points) and Graves (10 points) made it three in double figures and St. Paul scored the other 6 for the Patriots, who finished the season all square at 14-14.
This is a different kind of playoff run for Demarest, which was the No. 1 seed last year before falling to Ramapo on its own home court in the 2025 section final. That will not happen again as Ramapo, the six-time defending champion, went out in a first round upset by Morris Knolls and Demarest will not have another home game unless top-seeded Tenafly gets upset by No. 8 Wayne Valley.
That could happen, actually anything could, in one of the state's most balanced brackets.
"Now that I am a senior any game could be my last, so I want to take advantage of every opportunity," said Bernardez. "All of us are going to leave it all out there on the floor. I don't want any of these games to be my last."
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