Salem boys survive Woodstown’s best shot to become the last Salem County team standing in South Jersey Group I playoffs
SJ GROUP 1 TOURNAMENT
BOYS
No. 1 Salem 64, No. 8 Woodstown 53
No. 4 KIPP 50, No. 12 Glassboro 49
No. 14 New Egypt 47, No. 6 Penns Grove 38
No. 2 Palmyra 57, No. 10 Audubon 33
Wednesday’s semifinals
KIPP (17-9) at Salem (21-5)
New Egypt (13-14) at Palmyra (21-7)
GIRLS
No. 1 Haddon Twp. 49, No. 8 Woodbury 34
No. 4 Glassboro 57, No. 5 Palmyra 35
No. 3 Audubon 48, No. 11 Woodstown 29
No. 2 Wildwood 51, No. 7 Gateway 41
Wednesday’s semifinals
Glassboro (21-7) at Haddon Twp. (21-8)
Audubon (20-8) at Wildwood (21-7)
By Al Muskewitz
Riverview Sports News
SALEM – There really is only one mindset to have when it comes playoff time – survive and advance – and Salem was definitely in survival mode in the second half of its South Jersey Group I playoff game Monday night.
The top-seeded Rams were stuck in one of those cold spells that have hit them on occasion this season and they trailed county rival Woodstown by seven with five minutes left in the third quarter. But they turned to Deshaan Williams and Fatah Paige to get it inside, they got back on track and, with the Wolverines tired from all the energy they spent to get that lead, shook the doldrums and eventually the Wolverines, 64-53.
They now host No. 4 KIPP in Wednesday’s sectional semifinals. The Titans (17-9) edged No. 12 Glassboro, 50-49.
“That’s what it’s about,” Rams coach Anthony Farmer said. “It’s about playing four quarters. We punched them in the mouth early, they responded, give them credit, but it’s a four=quarter game.
“That’s what we’ve been preaching since Williamstown. That game kind of enlightened us and showed us what we need to do. “We’ve been in that situation before. We’ve had leads, lost them, came back. Tonight was just one of those nights where we cranked it up and … survive and advance, man. That’s what it’s about this time of year.”
The Rams (21-5) appeared headed for an easy win, but this was anything but easy. Xavier McGriff “got the party started” as they like to say, hitting three 3-pointers in the first quarter to help the Rams forge a 28-10 lead two minutes into the second quarter, but for the next 15 minutes or so they were in a fight for their playoff lives.
From that point to the end of the half, the Wolverines forced them into 0-for-4 shooting and eight turnovers and got it back to 29-25 at the break. The run was fueled by two 3-point plays by Frankie Hoerst with back-to-back 3s by Blake Bialecki and Elijah Caesar in between.
While the first quarter belonged to McGriff, the second quarter was Hoerst’s. The freshman scored six points and grabbed four rebounds in the second quarter alone and finished with 10 points and 13 boards for the game.
“We’ve been working on him the last couple weeks one-on-one, teaching him different moves and stuff and he really turned it on,” Wolverines coach Ramon Roots said. “And that’s what we expect from him.”
The halftime break did nothing to slow the Wolverines down. They opened the second half on an 11-0 run to grab a 36-29 lead. Bialecki gave them the lead with 6:33 left in the third quarter and Alejandro Vazquez and Caesar hit back-to-back 3s to extend it before Williams finally got the Rams on the board after seven empty possessions with 4:53 left in the quarter.
But all that energy the Wolverines expended getting back in the game and taking the lead took its toll. Vazquez conceded they were spent down the stretch.
“It gassed us out,” he said. “We fought hard and I’m proud of our guys, but we were all tired.”
That’s where Williams and Paige took over. Williams had 12 straight points for the Rams in the third quarter to bring them back and finished with another double-double. Paige was inserted when Marshall Stephens got in foul trouble and just played too good to come out. He neutralized Hoerst in the fourth quarter, grabbing nine of his 12 rebounds.
“The guards weren’t shooting it well so we had to rely on our big guys,” guard Tymear Lecator said. “We had our shot in the first half, it was not our night. A couple 3s we let go fell in, but a lot didn’t so we knew it wasn’t our night and we knew if we wanted to get the job done we couldn’t keep jacking up 3s, we had to attack down there and that’s what we did. We fed it to our big guys and got out of there with a good win.”
“O-o-oh, I can’t talk enough about Fatah, the way he came in and changed the game with his athleticism, energy, effort,” Farmer said. “I challenged him about a week or two ago about getting on that backboard. You’re big and strong, your athletic, you should go in there, you should be getting on that backboard and tonight, man, he just was phenomenal. He was huge for us.”
Williams had 19 points and 11 rebounds, while Paige had six points to go with his boards. Tymear Lecator had 12 points, five rebounds and eight assists.
“They started hitting a lot of shots, so everybody looked toward me to get the ball and score and I feel like that’s what I did,” Williams said of his third-quarter outburst. “It felt good, especially in the playoffs. It was a good environment to do it.”
“We were not losing,” Paige said. “I had that mindset from the jump. They had their little run and I was like, nah, we’re not losing and I did everything in my power to make sure we didn’t. I had to get on the backboard, make sure there were no easy baskets, stay hungry.”
SALEM 64, WOODSTOWN 53
WOODSTOWN (17-12): Elijah Caesar 4 1-2 11, Jalen Markward 0 0-0 0, Blake Bialecki 4 3-5 13, Alejandro Vazquez 3 2-3 9, Josh King 2 0-0 4, Andrew White 2 2-4 6, Trey Markward 0 0-0 0, Lucas Fulmer 0 0-0 0, Frankie Hoerst 4 2-5 10, Connor Miller 0 0-0 0. Totals 19 10-19 53.
SALEM (21-5): Xavier McGriff 3 1-2 10, Naziah Spence 1 2-3 5, Tymear Lecator 3 5-5 12, Fatah Paige 3 0-0 6, Deshaan Williams 9 1-3 19, BJ Robbins 2 4-6 8, Cole Sayers 0 0-0 0, Donnie Weathers 0 0-0 0, Marshall Stephens 1 0-0 2, Darrelle Johnson 1 0-0 2. Totals 23 13-19 64.
| Woodstown | 10 | 15 | 20 | 8- | 53 |
| Salem | 20 | 9 | 14 | 21- | 64 |
NEW EGYPT 47, PENNS GROVE 38: Damian Ware really liked the way the playoff road was laying out in front of his Penns Grove basketball team. First-round upsets left a couple double-digit seeds in the path of the Red Devils’ potential spot in the sectional final. All they had to do was get through it.
They got the desired defensive effort they wanted Monday night, but they didn’t have the shooting success to go with it and they fell to the 14th-seeded Warriors to end their season.
“It was back and forth in the fourth quarter,” Ware said. “We missed a few shots, they hit a few shots and pushed it out to five, then we had to foul and they made their free throws at the end to push it out to nine. But it was really like a two-point game most of the fourth quarter.
“We just missed shots. We missed shots that we normally would make at a decent rate. Got a lot of good looks, got a lot of clean looks, but shots just weren’t falling today. That’s what it came down to. Our game play wasn’t bad, we held them to 47 points. Our goal was to keep teams under 50, but we didn’t make shots.”
The sixth-seeded Red Devils (17-12) held their last lead at 35-34 with 3:30 to play, then hit only one more shot the rest of the game. The Warriors, who upset third-seeded Haddon Twp. in the opening round, meanwhile, scored seven points in a row to take the lead for good, then scored their last six points from the free throw line.
Another crucial stretch came at the end of the third quarter when they suffered three turnovers in the final 20 seconds that the Warriors turned into two buckets for a 27-25 lead.
Nolan Arnold, New Egypt’s all-time leading scorer with more than 1,600 career points, led all scorers with 20 points. Clyde Ferris added 16 with three 3-pointers.
Roman Gipson hit four 3-pointers for Red Devils and led them with 16 points. Geonni Conrad had 10 points.
“I tell the kids the game is the game,” Ware said. “You’re going to make shots, you’re going to miss shots, but you’ve got to hit them when they matter the most and we just didn’t make the shots when they mattered the most.”
NEW EGYPT 50, PENNS GROVE 41
NEW EGYPT (13-14): Nolan Arnold 8-4-20, Clyde Ferris 5-3-16, Dylan Harper 0-0-0, Paul Kennedy 1-3-5, Ryan Reynolds 2-1-6, Jake Milicia 0-0-0, Thomas Marabuto 0-0-0. Totals 16-11-47.
PENNS GROVE (17-12): Roman Gipson 6-0-16, Geonni Conrad 4-1-10, Will Roy 0-1-1, Haneef Frisby 1-1-3, Mishawn Brantley 0-0-0, Jameel Horace 2-0-4, Carson Pearsall 1-0-2, Luis Colon 1-0-2. Totals 15-3-38.
| New Egypt | 9 | 8 | 10 | 20- | 47 |
| Penns Grove | 5 | 11 | 9 | 13- | 38 |
Girls game
AUDUBON 48, WOODSTOWN 29: Third-seeded Audubon never gave the Wolverines a chance to get anything going and rolled into a semifinal showdown at Wildwood.
The Wolverines (12-16) were held to seven points in the first half and were down by 21 going into the fourth quarter, but they did outscore their hosts over the course of the final eight minutes.
“They played extremely tough and aggressive,” Woodstown coach Matt Smart said of the Green Wave. “They made it hard to get into our sets and played great defense.
“I was proud of the way we fought the entire time. There were times we could’ve given up, but the girls wanted to continue to fight. We took some really good shots that just didn’t fall our way today.”
The Wolverines didn’t have a scorer in double figures, but Lauren Hengel and Kendall Young each scored eight points apiece.
Audubon’s Emma Speyerer hit four 3-pointers and led all scorers with 18 points. Kylie Cannaday had 14 points and seven rebounds. The Green Wave had 12 steals as a team and four blocked shots.
It was a tough year for the Wolverines. They had to rebuild after graduating two of the most prolific scorers in school history and doing so meant putting players in positions they may not have been comfortable playing. But they persevered without complaint.
“What I’ll miss most about the senior class is their camaraderie they have,” Smart said. “Tonight when we got back to the locker room, I went to lock it up thinking everyone had left, and the seniors and a couple juniors were hanging out. They didn’t want to leave. We sat there for about an hour sharing stories and laughs from the season.
“When a sad moment like a season coming to the end happens, if you can look back on the good times, it’s very special. When they can look back on the memories that they made with friends, it’s a special group. Yes, there were tears today, but there were a lot of smiles and laughs.”
AUDUBON 48, WOODSTOWN 29
WOODSTOWN (12-16): Lauren Hengel 3 1-2 8, Emma Perry 3 0-1 6, Kyia Leyman 2 1-2 5, Kendall Young 3 2-2 8, Talia Guardascione 1 0-0 2, Kailyn Kennedy 0 0-0 0, Gina Murray 0 0-0 0. Totals 12 4-7 29.
AUDUBON (20-8): Peyton Marrone 1 0-0 2, Emma Speyerer 7 0-0 18, Kylie Cannaday 5 0-1 10, Giavanna Heller 3 0-0 6, Sophia Homa 1 6-6 8, Mylia Madden 0 0-0 0, Ciara Poponi 0 0-0 0, Jules Heck 2 0-0 4, Acen Bantle 0 0-0 0. Totals 19 6-7 48.
| Woodstown | 4 | 3 | 7 | 15- | 29 |
| Audubon | 13 | 11 | 11 | 13- | 48 |
Riverview Sports News 