Northstars open a season of high hopes with an impressive win over Allentown

Nottingham Northstars Cliff Joseph goes in for the dunk against Allentown. Photo by Dan Danko III

By Rich Fisher
Fish4scores.com

Dec. 15: The Nottingham High boys basketball team is not shy about its expectations this season.

“We are hungry and our goal is to play at Rutgers (in the state final),” coach Chris “The Baron” Raba said after the Northstars 97-45 win over visiting Allentown in tonight’s season-opener.

His players agreed when asked what they are capable of.

“Winning everything,” Richie Jones said.

“We’re capable of winning it all,” Darell Johnson agreed. “But we gotta play a lot of defense, we gotta run more and play more as a team.”

The Stars did a lot of that against the Redbirds, especially with their senior trio of Johnson, Jones and Cliff Joseph, who combined for 79 points, 30 rebounds and 13 assists.

Jones scored 33 with nine 3-pointers – seven of them coming in the second half. Johnson had 23 points, 15 rebounds and three blocked shots, and collected 19 points and 10 boards in the first half alone. Joseph missed a triple-double by one assist, as he had 23 points, 10 rebounds and nine assists.

[Best_Wordpress_Gallery id=”68″ gal_title=”Nottingham vs. Allentown Basketball December 15, 2017″]

And if what Johnson said is true, it could be scary for the rest of the Colonial Valley Conference.

“I’m assuming this is gonna be an every-game thing or us,” he remarked. “We just have to keep it coming.”

Each one took turns dominating. With Nottingham leading 18-15, Johnson keyed a 24-0 run by scoring 11 straight by himself within the binge. Limited to six points in the first half, Joseph tallied 11 in the third quarter. In the final period, Jones made 5 of 6 three-point attempts and looks to have a legitimate shot of breaking Peter Kelly’s school record of 79 in one season. He fell two shy of his record for treys in one game, which he set last year.

“I couldn’t wait for this game to start,” Jones said. “I was focused all day.”

The Stars looked a little unfocused at the start and actually trailed 12-11 late in the first quarter. But they turned up the defense and began turning Allentown over to start their decisive run.

“I expected that,” Johnson said. “We had a fresh team, we knew we had to get in a flow. As soon as we got in the flow, me and the team just kept it moving.”

And while the three Js – who Raba refers to as Lethal Weapon 3 – were the stars, there were other contributors as well.

Kastro Montina had 7 points and 8 rebounds, Ku’Jane Johnson had six rebounds and the coach’s son, freshman Brandon “The Mini-Baron” Raba, played just over three minutes and had four assists, two points and two rebounds.

“We have worked extremely hard in the off-season and we have depth, guys that can make plays on defense and offense,” Chris Raba said.

And with all eyes on Nottingham after their school record 23 wins and trip to the sectional final last season, Jones said the Northstars wanted to waste little time showing they are as good as advertised.

“This was a statement game for us,” the senior guard said. “We had to come out and show what we could do.”

It was the kind of performance that gives teams big dreams.

About The Author


Rich Fisher has been around the Hamilton Township sports scene for so long that he actually got Rich Giallella’s autograph when Giallella was still a player! Proud product of Hamilton YMCA and Lou Gehrig baseball leagues and former teammate of Jim Maher on a very average Barton & Cooney rec basketball team, Fish graduated from Nottingham Junior High and Steinert High school and has covered township sports since 1980. His goal in life is to convince Maria Prato that Jersey tomatoes are at least 100 times better than California tomatoes.