Weekend High Scool Basketball Update

Raba feels Nottingham boys are special; Steinert and Hamilton girls are both victorious

By Rich Fisher
Fish4Sores.com

Jan. 7: Chris “The Baron” Raba watched his team lose a big-time heart-breaker Friday night and then come back with a fourth-quarter vengeance for a 22-point win on Saturday.

That left the Northstars at 6-2 with their only two losses to undefeated Bordentown and Notre Dame by a total of six points. Nottingham had a two-point lead late against the Irish Friday night, but eventually fell, 74-72 in overtime in a tremendous game.

After playing in a high-energy atmosphere in front of a sold-out, frenzied crowd, the Stars returned to a half-empty Galaxy on a snowy Saturday afternoon against a Pennington team that was 3-5.

After seven lead changes and four ties, Nottingham took the lead for good with a 10-2 run to end the third quarter. The binge was capped by Richie Jones’ 3-pointer from nearly halfcourt at the buzzer, which led the way to a 77-54 victory.

Jones finished with 18 points on five 3-pointers and a three-point play. The junior bounced back from a three-point effort against the Irish

“I had a bad game yesterday so today I just had to clear my mind and get ready for this game,” he said. “Yesterday we came close to a team that’s ranked in the state, today we just had to bounce back.

“It was definitely a little tough to get moving. It was tough for us to bounce back, but we had to.”

The last thing Nottingham wanted was consecutive losses, as 5-3 just seems a lot worse than 6-2. And Raba feels this is an outfit capable of some big things.

“This is a special team,” said the coach, who is not prone to rash statements. “These kids are special, they’ve been in the weight room since April every day all the way up to November.

“The two games we lost were both away. We play the number 11 team in the state (ND) and there’s 1,000 people there and we played pretty well. The same thing at Bordentown. When you play pretty well on the road against quality teams, you may have something.”

Nottingham’s Cliff Joseph drives the lane for the layup. Photo by Wes “The Media Mogul” Kirkpartrick.

Now it becomes a matter of getting over the hump. Nottingham opened the season with a good win over a solid team in beating Ewing, although that was at home. The next step is to take down a powerhouse team on the road.

“We’re right there,” Raba said. “We made a couple mistakes here or there but this is a special group. There’s something about this group that’s special. We have a little bit of everything. We can shoot, we can get to the basket, we’ve got rebounders, we defend.”

They also have Cliff Joseph, who can do all of that stuff. Joseph had 23 points against Pennington after scoring 27 at Notre Dame. Darell Johnson added nine points and 10 rebounds, Christian Ford had seven points and seven rebounds and Kuyler Fowler had seven points and five boards as Nottingham held a 39-24 rebounding advantage.

“We just wanted to come out and play hard like we do every night,” Joseph said. “We wanted to come out with the win.”

In other words, they wanted to bounce back from a tough loss, which is what special teams do.


Steinert girls use huge second-quarter to pull away from WWPS

On Friday night, Steinert’s girls turned a close game into a blowout by using a 29-2 second quarter advantage to spark a 74-41 win over West Windsor-Plainsboro South.

The win pushed the Spartans (4-3) over .500 for the first time this season, as Jayda Bing had a double-double with 11 points and 10 rebounds. Natalie Mehl drained five 3-pointers and had 15 points and seven rebounds, while Tatiana Dorner had 11 points, five boards, five assists and five steals.

Madison Balke chipped in with eight points and four rebounds, and Leila Collazo had five points and 10 assists. Erika Golik added seven points and six rebounds, while Cassidy Wood had four points, four rebounds and four steals.


Hamilton girls win second of the season

Trailing by six entering the fourth quarter, the Hamilton West girls rallied for a 41-38 victory over Princeton, giving the Hornets their second win of the season and first over a Colonial Valley Conference foe.

Kierra Warner led the attack with 16 points, three steals and two blocks, while Marissa Cooper had eight points and 10 rebounds and Melanie Meara added 10 points, five boards and four steals. Dimitria Jones collected four points, 10 rebounds, five steals and two blocked shots.

Hamilton (2-6) outscored the Little Tigers 18-9 in the final quarter as Princeton fell to 4-3.

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.