Back on track

Top-ranked Salem CC returns to winning ways after suffering first loss of the season, retakes sole possession of first place in region; women’s team struggles in home loss to Raritan Valley

By Al Muskewitz
Riverview Sports News

NANTICOKE, Pa. – The Salem CC men’s basketball team got back to their old selves and back on the winning track in its first game since its first loss of the season, making Luzerne CC the unfortunate victim of circumstances 106-68 in its final road game of the regular season.

It may not have been as sharp in some areas as they would have liked, but the top-ranked Mighty Oaks (23-1) did plenty of good things to control a game they should have had no trouble winning and it’s a win.

And, with Union taking down Northampton elsewhere in Region 19 Saturday, the Mighty Oaks retook sole possession of first place in the region Division III standings.

They had been cruising along at 22-0 before running into Brookdale Thursday night. In a crisis of focus, they fell behind by 17 with nine minutes to play. They did rally to make it a three-point game with 3:33 left, but then went cold again and the Jersey Blues stretched the lead into the final minute.

This time they placed six scorers in double figures, got scoring from 10 of the 11 players who got in the game and had eight players with at least one assist. Nasseem Wright led the offense with 24 points (with nine rebounds and five assists). Nayeem Johnson had 16 points and five assists. Stefan Phillips had 13 points, Jarrell Little and Jahseir Sayles had 12 each, and Saaid Lee had 10 (with five assists). For Phillips and Sayles they were career highs.

“Every time we play the way we practice and play the way that we’re playing it works well; it has worked well all year,” Mighty Oaks coach Mike Green said. “We ran into a team that’s better on that given night, so it’s just about being back to our principles and being the best team we can be.”

It’s all about ball movement, wearing teams down and playing good defense. They turned the Trailblazers (4-18) over 20 times, thanks in part to 10 steals, and were credited with 30 assists on their 41 baskets.

Perhaps the only thing disappointing about Saturday’ was the continuation of their shooting slump from 3-point range. The Mighty Oaks were only 7-for-32 (22 percent) against Luzerne and are 13-for-49 over the last two games, dropping their shooting percentage from behind the arc 60 points to .337.

Green doesn’t seen concerned about it right now, but he’d certainly like to see it turn around.

“We’ve got enough guys hitting enough, it’s just the looks we’ve been getting,” he said. “Normally they’ve been knocking them down, so we just have to get in that rhythm.

“I’m a real believer in the law of averages, man, so somebody’s gonna get it, the parade of 3s. It’s boiling up.”

It took the Mighty Oaks a little while to get going, but once they got cranking they were hard to stop. The game was tied at 18, then Salem went on an 11-0 run to finally take control and steadily pulled away. They hit the 100 mark for the tenth time this season.

“You really don’t need to rile them up, they’re already that,” Green said. “Except for one game I believe this whole year they’ve always been riled up. There’s nothing that I need to do. They take it among themselves.

“I never thought we would lay down. Those guys responded and came out and scored 106 points, which should have been 130, but you’ve got to make shots.”

They have six regular season games remaining and they’re all at home, starting Tuesday night against No. 8 Montgomery County, a game they probably need to win to stay in contention for at-large bid to the national tournament if they don’t win the district tournament. No. 10 Union and testy Camden are also in the gauntlet.

“I think it’s great, as long as we don’t get too complacent,” Green said. “I think it’s great because we’ve had our fair share on the road. We haven’t been shooting it well these last two games and ironically both those games were on the road, so hopefully those guys are back in form and ready to knock it down.”

The game will be a particularly special one for at least two people directly involved. Mustangs assistant coach Jerome Monroe was on Green’s national tournament staff last year and Mighty Oaks’ guard Johnson played at Montco last year, scoring 15 off the bench against Salem in the regular-season game almost a year ago to the day.

“That’s the tough part,” Green said. “I’m sure there are a lot of emotions on his behalf. You just try to help him channel it and use it whatever it is for the best of Salem.”

SALEM CC 106, LUZERNE 68
SALEM CC (23-1): Nasseem Wright 9-14 6-6 24, Nayeem Johnson 7-13 2-4 16, Stefan Phillips 5-6 1-1 13, Jarrell Little 4-8 2-4 12, Jahseir Sayles 5-10 1-2 12, Saaid Lee 4-6 2-2 10, Qua Smith 3-7 1-1 7, Idris Rines 1-5 2-2 5
J Wright 2-3 0-2 4, Zyaire Gibson 1-8 0-0 3. Totals 41-81 17-24 106.
LUZERNE (4-18): Jacob Patterson 8-16 8-11 24, Jaidyn Johnson 1-7 1-1 3, Jayden Austin 2-7 1-2 7, Amare Ellis 2-14 6-8 11, Jonathan Mateo 3-8 0-0 7, Tyler Collins 1-3 0-0 2, Christopher Jenkins 0-0 0-0 0, Melvin Egbeto 1-3 0-1 2, Time Welcome 0-4 0-0 0, Kobe Jacobs 1-3 0-0 2, Bryan Ferreira 2-3 4-4 10. Totals 21-68 20-27 68.

Salem CC	52	54-	106
Luzerne	33	35-	68

Region XIX Standings

DIVISION III	R19	ALL	GSAC
SALEM CC (1)	10-1	23-1	17-1
Union (10)	15-2	19-5	13-2
Brookdale	13-2	16-6	11-4
Northampton (5)	11-2	19-3
Montgomery (8)	9-2	13-3
Camden	8-3	13-8	8-7
Ocean	10-5	13-8	9-6
Bergen	11-7	12-11	5-10
Atlantic Cape	8-8	9-11	7-9
Thaddeus Stevens	4-8	8-11
RCSJ-Cumberland	4-8	7-14	6-11
Harrisburg Area	4-8	5-14
RCSJ-Gloucester	5-11	7-16	1-12
Sussex	4-12	7-16	4-11
Philadelphia	3-10	9-10
Passaic	3-14	4-18	3-11
Delaware County	2-11	3-17
Luzerne	1-11	4-18

Number in parenthesis is JUCO Division III national ranking

SATURDAY’S GAMES
Salem CC 106, Luzerne 68
Brookdale 78, Ocean 77
Harrisburg Area 87, Passaic 68
Montgomery at Thaddeus Stevens
Delaware County at Williamson Trades
Morris 90, Westchester CC 64
Philadelphia 76, RCSJ-Cumberland 73
Mercer 103, Essex 95
Atlantic Cape at RCSJ-Gloucester
Camden 102, Bergen 87
Union 67, Northampton 57
Harcum 87, Delaware Tech 65
Lackawanna 86, Middlesex 59

Women’s game

CARNEYS POINT — No matter how difficult things had gotten during the season, Salem CC women’s coach Brian Marsh would never question the effort his undermanned team gave on the court.

He couldn’t say that Saturday.

Coming off one of their biggest losses of the season, the Mighty Oaks just seemed in a fog and lost to Raritan Valley 72-35.

‘There’ve been games where we played hard,” Marsh said. “We just went into Lackawanna on the road and beat Lackawanna. We come home and … I just don’t think the effort was there today.

“We shot horrendous. We did not shoot well and I was telling them if your ball’s not going into the basket then you have to play good defense, you have to rebound, you have to dive on the floor and win those 50-50 balls and we just didn’t want to do that. I don’t know what happened. A lot of our players’ heads were just not in this game today.”

There was a lot that didn’t go right. The Mighty Oaks (3-14) shot 23 percent from the floor for the game, hit just one of 20 3-point attempt – TJ Shaw in the second quarter – were charged with 29 turnovers and scored just 15 points in the second half. They gave up one-sided 20-point quarters on the front and back end of the game.

They’ve lost their last two games by a total of 106 points. That’s the way they were losing games two years ago when they brought the program back.

It seemed to bottom out in the fourth quarter when they shot 2-for-17 from the floor and scored only six points. It didn’t help that Shaw, their only player doing any consistent scoring, went out with a leg injury with 3:41 to play.

“I think this is the worst game we played this year,” Marsh said. “Now, have I seen it before in stretches, of course; but lately, really since the Cecil game right before Christmas I thought we played hard.

“Obviously there’s been times when we’ve been overmatched against some highly ranked teams, but they still played hard and they still finished hard. Today I don’t think they played hard. We just didn’t have it today. I just felt like the team kind of took their butt-kickin’ and were OK with it. That’s not normally Salem basketball.”

Shaw finished with 20 points. Kasey Oliver had 10, but nobody else scored more than three and two starters didn’t score at all. Shaw was 8-for-26 from the floor, 1-for-3 from 3-point range, but the other six players were 7-for-40 and 0-for-17 from 3. Raritan Valley, meanwhile, hit 10 3-pointers, had two 20-point scorers, three scorers in double figures and two double-doubles.

“It was just one of those things where we weren’t here today,” Marsh said. “I don’t think a couple of our players, their heads weren’t in the game; they didn’t want to be here.

“I just told them you have seven games left, how do you want to be remembered? Do you want to be remembered as a team that fought through adversity with injuries and illness and all that or do you just want to give up? That’s where they have to do it.”

RARITAN VALLEY 72, SALEM CC 35
RARITAN VALLEY (7-14): Julia Sole Pons 2-5 0-0 5, Maria Eguizabal Ruales 11-22 0-0 27, Paula Aguilera Ortega 1-3 0-0 2, Elizabeth May 8-17 2-2 21, Saionni Patrick 1-6 2-2 5, Aviva Palms 4-7 3-4 11, Jayla McNeil 0-2 0-0 0, Telma Comba 0-3 1-2 1. Totals 27-65 8-10 72.
SALEM CC (3-14): RayNescia King 1-10 1-2 3, TJ Shaw 8-26 3-5 20, Kasey Oliver 5-11 0-2 10, Paula Wilson 0-10 0-0 0, Jayda Hunter 0-6 0-0 0, Dani Gustin 1-3 0-12, Breanne Ruhl 0-0 0-0 0. Totals 15-66 4-10 35.

Raritan Valley	20	16	12	24-	72
Salem CC	8	12	9	6-	35

3-point goals: Raritan Valley 10-23 (Pons 1-2, Eguizabal Ruales 5-12, May 3-8, Patrick 1-1); Salem CC 1-20 (King 0-6, Shaw 1-3, Wilson 0-8, Hunter 0-3). Rebounds: Raritan Valley 44 (May 11, Palms 11); Salem CC 43 (Gustin 12, Shaw 9, Oliver 9). Fouled out: Gustin. Total fouls: Raritan Valley 12, Salem CC 10.

Region XIX Women’s Standings

DIVISION II	R19	ALL	GSAC
Harcum (3)	11-0	20-1
Union (13)	9-2	18-3	6-0
Mercer (14)	8-2	16-3	4-1
Essex	6-4	14-5	4-3
Delaware Tech	3-7	7-14
Raritan Valley	3-7	7-14	3-4
Middlesex	3-7	9-14	0-4
SALEM CC	2-8	3-14	0-4
Lackawanna	1-9	4-13
Morris	0-0	0-7	0-0

Number in parenthesis is JUCO Division II national ranking

SATURDAY’S GAMES
Raritan Valley 72, Salem CC 35
Passaic 69, Northampton 59
Camden 73, Bergen 49
Harcum 99, Delaware Tech 30
Mercer 82, Essex 64
Philadelphia 103, RCSJ-Cumberland 35
Atlantic Cape 89, RCSJ-Gloucester 69
Middlesex 82, Lackawanna 47
Ocean 58, Brookdale 53