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March 17, 2010

A wild weekend at the NJSIAA finals

By TOM WILLIAMS
Sports Columnist


Something happened over the weekend at the NJSIAA basketball finals in Toms River's Ritacco Center that has not happened in 31 years.

St. Anthony of Jersey City, coached by the legendary Bob Hurley, lost.

Oh, the Friars have lost in the state tournament since then, usually to St. Patrick's or Paterson Catholic in North Jersey. But when St. Anthony's reaches the state final, they win. It happened the last 19 times the team has been there. This year they lost a thrilling triple-overtime game to Trenton Catholic, the No. 1 ranked team in South Jersey.

The last time St. Anthony's lost a state final was in 1979 when the Friars were beaten by Jim Mogan's Sacred Heart team. That Sacred Heart club included Tom Mackey, who was All-South Jersey, Ralph Kates and Mike Dooley, who all averaged in double figures. Mogan won five South Jersey championships but 1979 produced his only state champion.

By the way, St. Anthony's only other loss in the state final before last weekend was in 1960 when Frank MacAlarnen and the Wildwood Catholic Crusaders beat them. But that was before Hurley took over as coach. It was one of two state titles by MacAlarnen. The most by a CAL boys coach is three by Ken Leary, Tom Feraco and Paul Rodio. Wildwood's Dave Troiano won four girls state titles.

The last CAL boys team to win a state title was Gene Allen's Atlantic City team in 2005. The last girls team was Absegami, coached by Greg Goodwin, in 2006.

This year the league did not have a single South Jersey basketball champion for the first time since 1970.

There was also a thrilling win by Camden Catholic over the weekend in the boys B final, a game that was postponed 24 hours because of a power failure at the Ritacco Center during the weekend's heavy winds and rain.

In girls play, the programs with the big names, teams that have played in this area often in various showcase events, were winners - Trenton Catholic, St. John Vianney, Shabazz and Neptune.

There was one unfortunate incident when a fight broke out following the girls Group 1 game between Florence and New Providence. A Florence girl, who had lost her temper a few times earlier in the game, exchanged words during the postgame handshake and threw a punch. It quickly escalated until it was brought under control by school and security officials just as quickly.

It was wrong, but it was an overly-excited 18-year old. What was worse were the adults who raced onto the court and into the bench area, some eventually being confronted by police.

Throughout that Group 1 final, one or two fans from Florence were heckling their own players and hollering at the coach to take certain players out of the game. It helped create an atmosphere of tension.

Fans from Shabazz were riding a girl from Chatham because of a newspaper story that they perceived was insulting to their team while praising the other girl who, by the way, scored her 1,000th point in the final minute of the state final game. She didn't write the story but they stayed on her anyway.

But the worst fan was the woman from Gill St. Bernard who was so sure that the officials had intentionally cost her team the game against Trenton Catholic that she continued hollering all through the presentation of awards, team photos and right up until she walked out the door.

It is understandable that fans will root hard for their home team and see things through their emotions, like decisions by officials. It is even understandable that they will frequently react by hollering right after a call (though some of them do say some pretty silly things).

But to continue hollering at the other team long after the game is over and to inflame a confrontation between players by coming out of the stands is foolish, sometimes dangerous.

There was great basketball performances at Ritacco over the weekend. And there will be more this week in the NJSIAA Tournament of Champions at Ritacco and Rutgers, leading up to the TOC finals next Tuesday at the Izod Center in the Meadowlands.

Lets hope the fans behavior keeps up with the players' performance this week. They fell short in too many cases over the weekend.









Read more of Tom Williams' columns