By Rich Fisher
Fish4scores.com
Feb. 22: In the midst of the mayhem on the floor of the Cure Insurance Arena, with back slapping, high fiving and hard hugging going on amidst anyone wearing gold and blue, 12-year-old Jordan “Baron III” Raba requested to be quoted.
So he shall be.
“All I know is WOOOOORK!” Jordan exclaimed, echoing the motto of the 2017-18 Nottingham High basketball team.
And the Northstars carried out their creed to the fullest as they worked and grinded and scrapped and battled and finally made history by taking a 60-59 victory over 2nd-seeded Trenton Catholic Academy in the Mercer County Tournament championship game.
It was the first MCT hoops title in the history of Nottingham, which had its first season of varsity athletics in 1981-82. And it came from a group of players who have steadily been building toward this for the past three years.
“It means a lot, we made history,” said tournament MVP Darell Johnson, who had 22 points and assisted on Cliff Joseph’s winning lay-up with 5.4 seconds remaining. “This is the one of the things on our check list, and now we can say we checked it off.”
“The moment is so surreal right now, man,” said Richie Jones, who scored seven of his 16 points in the fourth quarter.
Head coach Chris “The Baron” Raba made a little personal history as well, becoming the first public school basketball coach in Hamilton Township history to win a state (with Hamilton West) and county title.
[Best_Wordpress_Gallery id=”92″ gal_title=”Nottingham vs Trenton Catholic MCT Final – February 21,2018″]
“This is something as a coach I’ve never won,” said Raba, who was 8-years-old when Nottingham first began athletics. “I’ve won a sectional title, a state title, and this feels just as good. To beat a team like TCA, coached by Fred Falchi, what an honor.”
When asked to think about the magnitude of what his team just did, Joseph was speechless.
“I’m at a loss for words for that,” he said. “It’s amazing.”
It truly was, as Nottingham appeared ready to be blown out of the building in the first half. The Stars trailed by as much as 34-19 before Johnson’s 3-point play cut the deficit to 12 at halftime.
A slow start to the third quarter would have spelled doom for the Northstars (23-2), who tied the school record for victories that they set last year. But Nottingham began chipping away in the first half of the quarter before going on a full fledged run to get within 46-45 by period’s end.
TCA responded with six straight to open a 52-45 lead and it was 54-47 with 3:40 to go. TCA began playing a deliberate game and lulled Nottingham to sleep before finding Donovan Ryland for an easy lay-up to up the margin to seven.
That could have been tough to take, but Jones immediately hit a massive 3-pointer to keep hopes alive. It was only his second three of the game, as the school record-holder in that department did most of his damage driving to the basket.
“The shot wasn’t really falling so I just decided to keep going in,” Jones said.
TCA continued to play deliberate and a driving lay-up by Quashawn Lane made it 56-50. The Stars them summoned all they had, getting a lay-up from Jones and a baseline jumper from Johnson to cut it to four. Johnson then made a huge defensive play by coming up behind Ryland and stealing the ball out of his hands before hitting Joseph for a game-tying lay-up.
EJ Evans responded with a 3-pointer to give the Iron Mikes a 59-56 advantage, before Johnson scored on a driving lay-up. Jones then stole the inbounds pass and Nottingham called timeout with 11 seconds left. Joseph inbounded to Johnson at the top of circle and Darell drove toward the basket as if ready to score. By then, Joseph had found his way to the side of the lane and, as the Mikes converged on Johnson, he flipped to Joseph for the biggest lay-up in 38 years of Nottingham basketball.
“Our plan is never just for somebody to score, it’s for somebody to make a play,” Johnson said. “My coach had a lot of faith in me to make a play, I know I put a lot of work in the gym, I knew I could make a play for my team. One of my best friends is Cliff Joseph. He cut in, I saw him and he finished it.”
“Darell draws a lot of attention,” said Joseph, who finished with 15 points. “They help on him, he passed it to me and I got the basket.”
FINAL: Nottingham 60, TCA 59. Northstars win their first Mercer County Tournament title. Here's the basket by Cliff Joseph that won it with 5.4 seconds left. pic.twitter.com/jw96q3yOmF
— Greg Johnson (@gregp_j) February 23, 2018
It was the kind of play Raba has been seeing for three years now.
“These guy have been playing so long together,” the Baron said. “He knew that if they collapsed we’d have Cliff at the wing.”
The game was not over yet, however, as 5.4 seconds remained. TCA tried some trickery, throwing the ball along the baseline before inbounding. Quashawn Lane’s pass into the forecourt was picked off by a leaping Deonte West, who made several strong defensive plays on the night.
West sat out most of the season due to some issues, but has come back to become a strong player off the bench in the playoffs.
“Deonte’s been around since the summer,” Johnson said. “He had a few things going wrong in school but we all helped him get it right, and he’s one of the biggest parts of this team right now.”
As the clock ran out, a wild celebration started with players, coaches and cheerleaders.
The kind of celebration that had never been seen before from a Nottingham basketball team.
“Look around, how excited everybody is,” Raba said with a contented smile. “This is what coaching is all about.”
And Jordy Raba was in the middle of it all, helping prove to the world that wooooork pays off.
