Triton buries Pennsville under a barrage of early 3s, Salem gets past LEAP for sixth straight win, Schalick beats Buena to get to .500; on the girls side, Schalick stifles Buena early, Kingsway handles Penns Grove
BOYS BASKETBALL
Triton 65, Pennsville 53
Salem 44, LEAP 41
Schalick 64, Buena 42
GIRLS BASKETBALL
Kingsway 53, Penns Grove 20
Schalick 45, Buena 16
By Al Muskewitz
Riverview Sports News
PENNSVILLE — Long bus rides aren’t necessarily good for a basketball player’s legs, but the Triton Mustangs didn’t seem to have any trouble with it Friday night.
The Mustangs spent 45 minutes on the bus getting here, then came out and hit nine 3-pointers in the first half like they were layups to open a big lead on Pennsville before bringing home a 65-53 victory.
The Mustangs hit their first five 3s to open a 15-point lead and were 6-of-7 in the first quarter if you discount the heave they launched from midcourt at the buzzer. They hit three more in the second quarter and then added their 10th of the game early in the third.
At that point they were 10-of-13 from beyond the arc.
“I don’t ever expect that, but I know we have the ability to shoot well as a team,” Mustangs coach Andrew Canzanese said. “Early in the season we did and then we’ve been kind of going through a little bit of a rough patch recently.
“The other day, in Wednesday’s practice, we spent a lot of time from the ground up working on our feet. Our feet were all kinds of wrong, so we built it from the ground up and just got those shots back.
“Last night when we played Gloucester Catholic we got it back and we played more the way I knew we could and it carried into tonight, especially in the first half.”
The Mustangs (4-5) hit 10 treys in that game, too, and that energy clearly carried over to this one.
Joel Almarez-Olivares hit three in the first quarter and four in the game to finish with 14 points. Michael Revero hit one in the first quarter and led the Mustangs with 18 points. Noah Karwowski, who had five against Gloucester Catholic, and Chase Potts each had two, and Scott Cave had the other one.
The early barrage caught new Pennsville coach Ray Heine a little off guard.
“There are teams out there (that can shoot it like that), but I didn’t see that coming from them,” Heine said. “I’d seen two games they played and neither one of them I don’t think they broke 50. They certainly didn’t shoot it like that.
“We just don’t have the horses to play man-to-man. We don’t have the knowledge or the horses. We’ve got to play zone.”
Pennsville’s Mason O’Brien led all scorers with 24 points, but came off the floor limping at the end of the game. The junior guard went for 37 in a game earlier this week and is averaging 17.9 a game, but teams are starting to realize he’s the Eagles only game-changer and are starting to play him accordingly.
The 10 3-pointers were the difference in the Mustangs’ big lead. They led 58-30 going into the fourth quarter before the Eagles (1-9) cut it back against the Triton reserves.
“I appreciate the effort in the last four or five minutes when we could have kind of rolled over and just played dead,” Heine said. “We did continue to play.”
TRITON (4-5): Michael Revero 7 3-3 18, Noah Karwowski 2 0-0 6, Chase Potts 3 0-0 8, Scott Cave 2 3-3 8, Laron Sims 1 1-4 3, Myles Searles 1 0-0 2, Gio Salguero 0 0-0 0, Aiden Rivera 0 0-0 0, Metzgerdy Lamy 3 0-0 6, Rudra Vaghela 0 0-0 0, Joel Almarez-Olivares 5 0-0 14, Ibn Wynn 0 0-0 0. Totals 24 7-10 65.
PENNSVILLE (1-9): Danny Knight 1 4-4 7, Mason O’Brien 9 3-6 24, Jake Layfield 1 1-1 3, Trey Clevenger 0 0-0 0, Shamir Watkins 1 0-0 2, Jake Farina 2 1-1 5, Gavin Spears 1 0-0 2, Aidan Clark 3 0-0 6, Colt Willis 1 0-0 2, Chanler Lindenmuth 1 0-0 2. Totals 20 9-12 53.
| Triton | 27 | 17 | 14 | 7- | 65 |
| Pennsville | 11 | 7 | 12 | 23- | 53 |
SALEM 44, LEAP 41: Big players make big plays in big games and that certainly applied to Tymear Lecator. The Salem junior guard scored 18 points, grabbed four rebounds and dished four assists as the Rams won the battle of top four teams in the South Jersey Group I power points standings.
The Rams (8-1) trailed by one at halftime, but took a four-point lead into the fourth quarter.
Marshall Stephens had eight points and his third straight 10-rebound game. Deshaan Williams had nine points and seven rebounds. Fatah Paige had seven points and eight boards.
It was LEAP’s second game since the NJSIAA ruled Wednesday to ban the Lancers from the state playoffs as the result of a benches-clearing brawl involving players, coaches and spectators in the second quarter of their game with St. Joseph (Hammonton) Tuesday. St. Joe also was banned from the playoffs.
1000-Point Watch
| PLAYER | TODAY | TOTAL |
| Blake Bialecki, Woodstown | DNP | 858 |
| Tymear Lecator, Salem | 18 vs. LEAP | 755 |
SCHALICK 64, BUENA 42: Freshman Julian Dickerson had the second-best game of his career, scoring 19 points to lead three Schalick scorers in double figures. He has gone for 16, 18 and 19 in his last three games and is now averaging 15.0 for the season.
Kade Macom hit three 3-pointers and scored 13 points and Dylan Sheehan had 10.
BUENA (1-7): Elwood Taylor 4 3-4 12, Richie Wilson 4 0-3 8, Ricky Bessix 6 0-0 12, Zack Mick 3 0-0 6, Nathan Nieves-Medina 1 0-0 2, Max Kline 1 0-1 2. Totals 19 3-9 42.
SCHALICK (4-4): Orion Baldwin 3 0-3 7, Julian Dickerson 8 1-4 19, Kade Macom 4 2-2 13, Sherrod Jones 4 1-2 9, Dylan Sheehan 4 2-2 10, Cooper Willoughby 3 0-0 6. Totals 26 6-13 64.
| Buena | 10 | 12 | 9 | 11- | 42 |
| Schalick | 23 | 19 | 16 | 6- | 64 |
Girls games
SCHALICK 45, BUENA 16: The Cougars put together another big defensive first half to take control. They held their hosts to three points in the first half while building a 26-3 lead. In their five wins this season, the Cougars have held their opponents to 10 points in the first quarter and 29 in the first half.
Schalick’s Neveah Robinson led all scorers with 17 points. Willow Davis scored all nine of her points in the first half.
SCHALICK (5-1): Ava Scurry 4 0-0 8, Cali Fisler 1 0-2 2, Neveah Robinson 8 1-1 17, Willow Davis 4 0-3 9, Olivia Vanacker 1 0-2 2, Jaelynn Jarman 0 1-2 1, Vicky Basich 2 0-0 4, Emmalynn Weir 0 2-2 2, Emma O’Neill 0 0-0 0, Bailey Wentz 0 0-0 0, Paige Sparks 0 0-0 0, Eve Berger 0 0-0 0. Totals 20 4-12 45.
BUENA (2-5): Athena Bradley 0 1-3 1, Isabella Adkins 0 0-0 0, Kayla Lafferty 1 0-0 2, Ava Cornew 0 0-0 0, Sykes-Hicks 1 0-0 2, Anaiyah Torres-Boyce 3 0-2 6, Julia Futty 0 0-0 0, Isabella Acevedo 0 0-0 0, Leylani Muniz 1 2-2 5, Malia Brown 0 0-0 0. Totals 6 3-7 16.
| Schalick | 14 | 12 | 14 | 5- | 45 |
| Buena | 2 | 1 | 5 | 8- | 16 |
KINGSWAY 53, PENNS GROVE 20: Annika Dohlen came out with the hot hand, scoring 10 of her game-high 14 points in the first quarter to help the Dragons take control. Penns Grove’s Janiyah Cummings hit three 3-pointers and led Penns Grove with 11 points.
PENNS GROVE (1-8): Janiyah Cummings 4 0-0 11, Mikayla Washington 2 1-4 5, Nyasia Numan 0 0-0 0, Keziah Patterson 2 0-0 4, Jamira Lewis 0 0-0 0, Yeichelyn Rodriguez 0 0-0 0, Armani Blackstone 0 0-0 0, Domari Torress 0 0-0 0. Totals 8 1-4 20.
KINGSWAY (6-4): Alessia Lenten 1 4-4 6, Bella Archer 1 0-0 2, Annika Dohlen 6 1-2 14, Liv Myers 1 0-0 3, Ojonile Gabriel 1 2-4 4, Chloe McNeill 3 2-2 8, Gia Baus 3 0-0 6, Gab Scaffidi 0 0-0 0, Ellie Farro 0 0-0 0, Lila Storms 3 2-2 8, Jayah Love 1 0-0 2. Totals 20 11-14 53.
| Penns Grove | 6 | 3 | 3 | 8- | 20 |
| Kingsway | 17 | 15 | 17 | 4- | 53 |
Riverview Sports News 