Mar. 4, 2015 CJ III Boys Basketball
James Jenkins drives past Allentown's Xavier Roldan for two of his eight points tonight (Photo by Wes "The Media Mogul"
Kirkpatrick).
Freshmen and seniors all do their part as Northstars overcome Allentown
By Tony Piscotta
Fish4scores.com
March 4: Nottingham basketball coach Chris “The Baron” Raba feels that tight state tournament
contests like tonight's hard-fought Central Jersey Group 3 quarterfinal game at Allentown usually
come down to the seniors.
But for his squad tonight, freshmen Cliff Joseph and Cartier Bowman stepped up big time in the
second half to chip in to the Stars' 54-47 win.
Joseph led all scorers with 23 points, including five 3-pointers. The wiry Bowman helped limit
Redbirds' leading scorer Hal Shaw to four points in the fourth quarter, and made a key layup down the
stretch for his only basket of the game.
With the win, the 9th-seeded North Stars (16-9) move on to take on top-seed Ewing Thursday night at
the Devils Den (weather permitting).
"They're special kids," said Chris Raba of his two freshmen handling the pressure. "Not many can. In
13 years I've never played two freshmen or wanted to. Those kids played a lot this year."
Joseph and the Stars started off slowly as the Redbirds swarming defense helped the hosts to a 14-7
lead.
"How they play, it's tough," said the
Stars' coach. "They use a lot of
different stuff defensively. I think a
lot of our turnovers were unforced in
the beginning. That could have been
nerves."
As they have done all season the
Stars turned up the defense and cut
Allentown’s lead to 22-18 at halftime.
In a sign of things to come Joseph
hit two 3-pointers and a field goal for
eight points to keep the Stars close.
"My teammates just kept telling me
to shoot and I just kept shooting,"
said Joseph. "Some of them fell and
some of them didn't."
"Cliff is a special kid," said senior
Bam Johnson, who was hampered
by two quick fouls in the opening
quarter but would play a key role on
both ends after halftime and finish
with nine points, three steals, and
four assists.
"I'm glad I could have been part of it Mahrooz Qaderi drives in for two against Allentown tonight (Photo by Wes "The
playing with him," Johnson said. "He Media Mogul" Kirkpatrick).
was a big part of a lot of wins -— this one especially. He started hitting shots, opening everything up."
Trailing 29-24, Nottingham scored eight straight to take a 32-21 lead after three quarters.
"Our defense got better as the game went on," said Joseph. "We had a good talk at halftime and then
we just came out hard. We always have to come out and play hard on defense."
One of the keys was holding Shaw to just three field goals in the second half.
"Their big guy started to come out and hit jumpers," said Raba. "When we use Lord (Dawson) and
Dorian (Johnson), they're kind of help players. We had Cartier try to guard that if the big guy popped
out. He alters a lot of shots."
Three of Notitngham's key seniors — Johnson, Mahrooz Qaderi, and James Jenkins — stepped
things up as well.
With the Stars up 32-31 with 23.4 left to play in the third, Jenkins forced Allentown guard Tristan Millett
into a five second violation. Millett has been a thorn in the Stars back the past two seasons since
arriving from Notre Dame but was held in check (nine points) for the most part tonight.
"Everybody that was guarding him actually contained him," said Johnson. "We played good defense.
We were talking on screens. Everything. We did real well tonight."
"We stuck together. We just worked," added Qaderi, who scored four of his seven points in the final
quarter and battled on the boards on both ends of the floor. "That's all we did. We don't care about
offense. We won this game on defense. We just worked
as hard as we could. This wasn't going to be our last
game. We knew that."
To their credit the Redbirds continued to battle, too, with
Tyler Moy scoring six of his nine points in the final
quarter,
Nahshon Taylor converted one of two free throws with
2:41 left to tie the game at 44-44 but Johnson answered
with a layup and was fouled on the play — converting the
foul shot for a three-point play. Qaderi pushed the lead to
49-44 with a basket with 1:04 left that pretty much put it
away.
"It was just who wanted it more," said Johnson. "We had
to work for everything. Every rebound. Every shot. We
just had to work."
While the two freshmen were impressive, Raba felt it was
the guys who have been with the Stars the longest who
willed the Stars to victory.
"Seniors win games like this," he said. "They've been a
big part of the success that we've had the last three
years. They just make winning plays. Diving on the floor.
Getting a rebound, a loose ball; going through a screen."
While defeating Allentown (16-10) was nice they aren't
ready to finish their careers just quite yet.
Lord Dawson tips it off against Allentown as official
Troy Stevenson throws up the game-opening jump
ball (Photo by Wes "The Media Mogul" Kirkpatrick).
"We don't care about rankings," said Qaderi, when asked
about Ewing. "We're going in there to win the game
tomorrow. We don't care who they are."
His coach agreed.
"We have the mindset that we aren't just taking a bus ride down Olden Avenue," Raba said. "I expect
us to compete. It's going to be tough. They're probably one of the best teams I've seen in public school
in a long, long time."
"Like coach said, 'We're not just here for the bus ride,'" Johnson said. "We're going to go there to
shock the world. We're going to try and get the W."