Top-ranked Mighty Oaks overcome slow start to stay undefeated; women fall under a barrage of 3s
By Al Muskewitz
Riverview Sports News
SEWELL – For the better part of the first half Saturday it looked like this was going to be it, the day somebody finally gets the Salem CC basketball team and hands the Mighty Oaks their first loss of the season.
RCSJ-Gloucester came out hitting shots and the Mighty Oaks came out, well, not. The top-ranked team in the land was down 13 eight minutes into the game and again at the 10-minute mark of the first half.
At that point Salem coach Mike Green had seen enough to know he had seen too much. He called a 30-second timeout to tell his team to get on the stick, and they responded.
They clawed back into it and actually built a six-point lead before going into the break up by one. They never lost the lead in the second half and eventually pulled away from the Roadrunners 96-84 to hold onto all the good things they have built to this point in the season.
“I think this was the first time this year we took somebody a little lightly,” Green said. “I told them their coaches were really good, they’re players we really good. They ain’t got nothing to lose. They’re coming to play against the No. 1 team, so you’ve got to be locked in. I don’t think we were locked in to start the game.
“It gets like that when you’re complacent. You’re 17-0, you’re No. 1 in the country, sometimes you ain’t fired up. But we woke up pretty quick. They got fired up some really quickly after that.”
It was easy to see how that could have happened. The Mighty Oaks (18-0) were coming off a win over No. 7 Union that was the biggest threat to their undefeated record to date, they were winning games by an average of 20 points a game, and they beat Saturday’s hosts by 28 in their first meeting in December.
But the Roadrunners (6-13) had different ideas. They ran out to leads of 22-9 and 28-15 in the first 10 minutes by using tenacious defense that forced Salem at one point into eight straight empty possessions and sharp 3-point shooting.
They were 7-of-8 from beyond the arc in the first half. They hit their first three 3s in a 15-2 run that produced the 22-9 lead. Two more 3s – one by former Salem High standout Jabez DeJesus – pushed it 28-15 with about 10 minutes left in the half. That’s when Green called time to reset the mindset.
“We definitely came out a little slow; we definitely looked over them a little bit,” gunner Zyaire Gibson said. “It’s hard to win, win, win and keep the same mentality all the time, but our coach does a great job of keeping us together and playing hard. After he called the time out, he talked to us and made sure everybody knew what they were supposed to do and we went out and figured it out.”
The Mighty Oaks (18-0) got back in it by doing what the Roadrunners were doing to them early in the game. They came out of the timeout, turned up the defensive intensity and promptly went on a 15-0 run to take the lead.
“Since we beat them by 30 the first time we came here thinking as a team they were going to lay down, but they didn’t,” Jerrell Little said. “It’s probably the first or second time we’ve taken a team lightly; maybe the first game of the season too we took them lightly.
“Our coach always says we’re the No. 1 team in the nation so we’re gonna get everybody’s best game and especially being at home we’re going to get double people’s best game. We came in (complacent) a little bit, but at least we picked it up, got the win. But now we know, like people are hunting. We just have to be the hunters next time.”
Gibson played one of the biggest roles in keeping the Mighty Oaks out front. He hit five of his career-high six 3-pointers in a 21-point second half and finished the game with a career-high 26. He opened the second half with a 3 and a layup to extend the lead, then drained four 3s in a row from both corners in a personal 16-point run over the final five minutes to ice the game.
He was 9-of-18 from the floor overall, 6-of-15 from 3-point range. His previous high for 3s was five against Bergen in the home opener and at Ocean.
“They got a real soft rim; it makes it a little easier to shoot,” he said. “At the home gym we’re shooting every day, it’s kind of routine. Here it took me a little while to get in the groove, but I figured it out.”
ACORNS: Gibson (top photo) was one of four Mighty Oaks scoring in double figures. Saaid Lee had 17 points, nine assists and four steals. Nasseem Wright had 16 points and Little 15 …. Wright and Idris Rines combined for five blocked shots that all seemed to come at crucial points in the game … Ace Lassiter led RCSJ with 24 points, but the Mighty Oaks held him to six in the second half.
SALEM CC 96, RCSJ-GLOUCESTER 84
SALEM CC (18-0): Zyaire Gibson 9-18 2-2 26, Saaid Lee 7-11 2-3 17, Nasseem Wright 6-9 4-6 16, Jarrell Little 6-14 0-0 15, Stefan Phillips 2-3 1-2 5, Idris Rines 2-4 1-1 5, Nayeem Johnson 1-5 2-2 4, Qua Smith 2-2 0-0 4, Jaiayre Wright 2-3 0-2 4, Jahseir Sayles 0-2 0-0 0. Totals 37-71 12-18 96.
RCSJ-GLOUCESTER (6-13): Nasir Williamsbey 5 2-2 13, Ace Lassiter 7 7-9 24, Julian Johnson 2 0-0 6, Amara Secho 1 0-0 2, Hajir Davis 8 6-7 23, Aiden Cramner 3 1-2 7, Jabez DeJesus 3 2-2 9. Totals 29 18-22 84.
| Salem CC | 44 | 52– | 96 |
| RCSJ-Gloucester | 43 | 41– | 84 |
Region XIX Standings
| DIVISION III | R19 | ALL | GSAC |
| SALEM CC (1) | 12-0 | 18-0 | 11-0 |
| Northampton (5) | 9-0 | 14-1 | |
| Union (7) | 10-2 | 13-3 | 10-2 |
| Montgomery (9) | 5-1 | 8-2 | |
| Ocean | 9-2 | 10-4 | 6-3 |
| Brookdale | 11-3 | 11-5 | 7-3 |
| Camden | 6-3 | 9-6 | 6-5 |
| RCSJ-Cumberland | 6-5 | 7-8 | 6-6 |
| Bergen | 7-8 | 8-10 | 3-7 |
| Atlantic Cape | 5-7 | 6-8 | 4-7 |
| Thaddeus Stevens | 3-5 | 6-9 | |
| RCSJ-Gloucester | 4-11 | 6-13 | 1-7 |
| Sussex | 3-11 | 5-13 | 3-9 |
| Delaware County | 2-8 | 3-12 | |
| Passaic | 3-12 | 3-13 | 3-9 |
| Luzerne | 1-6 | 4-11 | |
| Harrisburg Area | 1-6 | 2-12 | |
| Philadelphia | 1-8 | 6-8 |
Number in parenthesis is JUCO Division III national ranking
SATURDAY’S GAMES
Salem CC 96, RCSJ-Gloucester 84
Montgomery 95, Harrisburg Area 86
Ocean 95, Thaddeus Stevens 86
Chesapeake 91, Raritan Valley 67
Delaware County at Luzerne
Union 67, Atlantic Cape 53
Mercer 71, Montgomery (Md.) 69
Bergen 77, RCSJ-Cumberland 68
Northampton 90, Sussex 70
Morris 76, Delaware Tech 72
Essex 72, Camden 63
Middlesex 142, Kingsborough 66
Women’s game
SEWELL – Story posting soon.
SEWELL – Salem CC women’s coach Brian Marsh knew how good a player RCSJ-Gloucester’s Shannon Pierman was from the way he recruited her out of Woodstown High School and one of the focuses for his team Saturday was to limit her effectiveness inside as much as possible.
But the Roadrunners found a way around those plans. They killed it from the outside.
They hit 12 3-pointers and shot down the Mighty Oaks 71-54.
The Roadrunners, No. 15 in JUCO Division III, hit 10 3-pointers in the first half to open a 45-23 lead. Anna DiPiero hit six of her seven 3s in the first half — five in the second quarter. Alaina LaMonica hit three in half and Hadley Rodriguez had the other.
DiPiero and LaMonica both finished with 21 points. Pierman, the team’s overall leading scorer and rebounder, had 13.
“Our goal was to stop Shannon, and then No. 22 (DiPiero) went, what, 7-for-8 from 3-point land in the first half,” Marsh said. “They shot 80 percent as a team from 3-point land in the first half and that’s really hard to come back from. We tried, it’s just I think our defense wasn’t there today.
“I tell the girls Salem basketball is defense and rebounding and we’re going to get our offense out of that. It’s just one of the things we’ve got to keep working.”
The Mighty Oaks (2-10) did get it back to 14 with two and a half minutes left in the fourth quarter, but got no closer.
RayNescia King led Salem with 14 points. Tanijya Shaw had 12. King had 10 of her points in the second half and Shaw had eight.
“I thought they played hard, but I just don’t think were consistent enough and I think that’s showing in our record,” Marsh said. “Minute by minute, quarter by quarter, there’s just some inconsistencies.
“I thought we played really well the last four games even though there are a couple losses there. Against Monroe I thought we played really well and just today it kind of seems we regressed a little bit.”
RCSJ-GLOUCESTER 71, SALEM CC 54
SALEM CC (2-10) – RayNescia King 5 1-6 14, Tanijya Shaw 6 0-0 12, Kasey Oliver 2 2-3 6, Paula Wilson 2 0-0 5, Ameriyona Hunter 1 0-0 3, Dani Gustin 1 3-4 6, Justine Cardona 4 0-0 9, Jayda Hunter 0 0-0 0. Totals 21 6-13 54.
RCSJ-GLOUCESTER (11-3) – Anna DiPiero 7 0-1 21, Alaina LaMonica 7 3-3 21, Emma Buttocovia 3 1-2 7, Vienna Gantz 0 0-0 0, Brenna Ivey 0 0-0 0, Hadley Rodriguez 1 0-0 3, Shannon Pierman 5 3-6 13, Tinu Bamgbose 1 1-2 3, Savannah Shute 1 1-2 3. Totals 25 9-16 71.
| Salem CC | 7 | 16 | 15 | 16- | 54 |
| RCSJ-Gloucester | 17 | 28 | 10 | 16- | 71 |
Region XIX Women’s Standings
| DIVISION II | R19 | ALL | GSAC |
| Harcum (5) | 6-0 | 14-1 | |
| Union (7) | 8-1 | 14-3 | 6-0 |
| Mercer (18) | 6-2 | 10-3 | 3-1 |
| Essex | 6-3 | 10-4 | 5-2 |
| Delaware Tech | 4-4 | 5-11 | |
| Raritan Valley | 3-5 | 6-8 | 3-3 |
| Lackawanna | 2-6 | 2-9 | |
| SALEM CC | 1-5 | 2-10 | 0-3 |
| Middlesex | 1-6 | 6-13 | 0-4 |
| Morris | 0-5 | 0-5 | 0-3 |
Number in parenthesis is JUCO Division II national ranking
SATURDAY’S GAMES
RCSJ-Gloucester 71, Salem CC 54
Bergen at RCSJ-Cumberland
Delaware Tech 94, Morris 46
Northampton 72, Sussex 43
Essex 86, Camden 55
Mercer 102, Montgomery (Md.) 44
Cecil 77, Middlesex 55
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