Richie Jones gets set to launch a 3-pointer against Matawan. Jones had four on the day (Photo by Wes “The Media Mogul” Kirkpatrick).
By Rich Fisher
Fish4scores.com
Mar. 2: The last time the Nottingham High boys’ basketball team was in the NJSIAA Group III Central semifinals, Chris “The Baron” Raba was there.
As a spectator.
“That was Pete Kelly’s senior year,” said Raba, who was the Hamilton West coach at the time. “Freddy Falchi and I drove to Neptune to watch the game.”
What they saw in that March, 2008 contest was a Fliers victory, and the Northstars had not gotten that far since.
Until now. And Raba will have a much better seat for this one.
The 2nd-seeded Stars continued a season like no other Thursday, taking a 54-46 victory over 10th-seeded Matawan in the CJ III quarterfinals. Next up is a 1 p.m. semifinal at the Galaxy on Saturday against Lawrence High, who knocked off Neptune.
The Stars (22-5) will take the floor as the school’s all-time winningest boys basketball team as Thursday’s victory snapped a tie with the 2001 squad for most victories in a season.
“It’s a great accomplishment,” said Kastro Montina, who had the biggest game of his varsity career against the Huskies. “This was one of our goals we wanted to reach, and we reached it.”
Raba has now coached two township teams to the most wins in one season as his 2001 Hamilton West state championship team has the Hornets mark with 23.
“I guess I’ve gotta go to Steinert now,” he said with a laugh. “But it’s good for the kids. It was one of their goals. They expected to break the school record, but now they want more.”
Indeed, they would like a sectional title to go along with it and are now two games from doing just that thanks to a nice team effort.
With leading scorer Cliff Joseph (20 points per game) shooting just 1-for-10 and scoring three points, Nottingham needed offense from elsewhere.
Darell Johnson, who had a huge game with 14 points, 12 rebounds and five blocks, goes up for a lay-up as Reggie Tawiah (11) tries to defend (Photo by Wes “The Media Mogul” Kirkpatrick).
Darell Johnson had his second straight outstanding state tournament performance with 14 points, 12 rebounds and five blocked shots, leaving Raba impressed. And Richie Jones, whose 3-point shot accuracy had been off recently, bombed in four from behind the arc en route to 14 points.
“We had a good practice yesterday, I was hitting shots in practice and it just translated into the game,” Jones said. “It was extremely important I did that. We know for us to win games I gotta hit shots, and today I did.”
What Jones failed to mention is that he has not been 100 percent.
“He was hurt, he had a high groin pull,” Raba said. “He’s a weapon too. They’ve got to guard these guys. It’s not just Cliff out there.”
Behind Jones and Johnson – along with strong minutes from Edwin Lakie, Christian Ford, Dan Ekwunife and Darry Felix – Nottingham only trailed 2-0 before Ford’s 3-pointer gave it a lead it would never relinquish.
The Stars used a 10-0 run for a 15-3 advantage and maintained control over the first three quarters. The lead fluctuated between eight and 14 as Matawan could never make a push and could not run its patient offense since it was trying to make up substantial ground.
The Huskies finally put a scare into the home team when they used a 10-2 run at the start of the fourth quarter to pull within 42-39.
Enter Montina.
With Matawan riding all the momentum and one possession away from possibly tying it, the junior took a pass on the left wing and drained an old-fashioned set shot from behind to arc to regain
Christian Ford drives to the net. (Photo by Wes “The Media Mogul” Kirkpatrick).
control for Nottingham with 4:11 remaining.
“That was a big three,” said Raba, who later upgraded it to “huge.”
“I just gotta be confident,” Montina said. “My coach told me to come in and be confident in my shot. At first when I started the season I wasn’t that confident because I missed a lot of shots.”
Montina scored eight points, all in the second half. He had nine during garbage time in Tuesday’s win against Allentown, and finally got quality minutes when it counted at crunch time.
“Kastro’s a great player,” Jones said. “I’m glad he finally gets to show what he can do.”
Raba said it was just a matter of Montina catching up to his teammates.
“Kastro started off late this year,” The Baron noted. “He did everything in the summer, but he didn’t get his physical until late so he kind of fell behind in the stuff we were doing. I don’t think he was cleared until after Christmas.
“He had a really good summer. We had him marked as our seventh or eighth guy coming into the season. It’s not that we never had any confidence in him. It was just the fact he started off so late and the guys were in a rhythm, he kind of got pushed back.”
And now he’s pushing back and giving Nottingham yet another player to count on in an already deep roster that is trying to push even deeper into the state tournament.
