Coming soon will be more summaries from varsity games as well as Freshmen and JV Roundups.

GMC Hoops Summaries--January 14, 2009
Freshman Game Of The Week--Week Four

Hasan Leads St. Joe's-Green Over Piscataway, 67-52

By Greg Machos
January 14, 2009

METUCHEN, NJ--St. Joseph's-Green has been one of the best squads at the Freshmen level for the past two seasons. With two trips to the finals, and a championship in the Perth Amboy/GMC Freshmen Tournament back in the 2008 season. St. Joseph's has actually made appearances in three straight finals with St. Joseph's-White winning back in 2007. This year, the Little Falcons are off to another solid start with seven wins in their first nine games. The only two losses have come against the Lions of Monsignor Farrell over the holidays in the Farrell Christmas Tournament (59-53) and Perth Amboy (46-45). St. Joe's-Green has since avenged the loss to Farrell with a 58-55 victory at Farrell on January 11th.

Meanwhile, the Piscataway Freshmen team, which are the defending Perth Amboy/GMC Freshmen Tournament champions, finished 18-1 last year. However, the Little Chiefs defense did not get off to a good start with a loss on the road at Perth Amboy on opening day (54-41). The Little Panthers have a solid freshman class that is led by Hamilton Capellan, who is playing at the varsity level. So, look for Amboy to be one of the favorites to at least get to the Final Four this coming February. The Chiefs are led by three players: Marcus Freeney, David Claybrook, and Clarence Morris. St. Joe's-Green is led by Salman Hasan, Matthew Green, Sean Finan, and Matthew Woody.

The Little Falcons came out strong in this one, and it turned out to be very decisive. Over the first 2:53 of the contest, St. Joe's-Green charged out of the gate with a 14-2 tear, and actually led 16-2 with 4:30 to go in the first. St. Joseph's finished off the quarter with a 10-4 spurt to take a 26-6 first quarter lead. P-Way would fight back though with a 32-23 run over the next 14:34 to pull within eleven at 49-38 late in the third. However, the Little Chiefs wouldn't get any closer as Brian Fitzpatrick connected on a three from the right corner with a minute remaining, and Hasan connected on two treys over the final 20.8 seconds to give the Little Falcons a 58-40 advantage heading into the fourth.

Piscataway would get the edge in the final period of play with a 12-9 showing, but St. Joseph's-Green came away with the 67-52 victory. Hasan ended up with a game high 20 points while Greene and Finan added 12 each. Woody also contributed with 11 points. Freeney led the Little Chiefs with 12 points while Claybrook and Morris chipped in with 9 and 8 points respectively. Each team outscored the other in two of the four periods. After St. Joe's got off to its fast start, the Chiefs tried to rebound with a layin at the 4:05 mark of the first by Chaz Bryson that made the score, 16-4. Claybrook added another jumper to answer a Little Falcons earlier score for an 18-6 score at the 3:15 mark.

Following a 30 second timeout, Finan got into the act with a bucket at the 2:51 mark, and after a P-Way turnover at the 2:39 mark, Greene dished to Woody for a layup, and a 22-6 lead. Finan blocked a shot at the 2:23 mark while Woody added another basket that capped an 8-0 spurt for a 26-6 lead at the 1:37 mark. The score remained that way going into the second. Joe Sahr opened up the scoring for the Little Chiefs in the second with a jumper from the right low block for a 26-8 St. Joe's lead at the 6:56 mark. P-Way had a chance to get a bit closer, but Thomas Cicalese stole a bad pass. Cicalese drove in for a layup only to have it blocked by Claybrook at the 6:21 mark. Jordin Robinson turned in a fine defensive play by drawing a charge on Claybrook at the 6:13 mark.

The Little Chiefs were finally able to chip into the lead a bit as Claybrook went to the line and made one of two at the 5:10 mark for a 26-9 score. However, Cicalese answered with a pass to Ray Kowalski for a layup that made the score, 28-9 at the 4:54 mark. Piscataway would get a three pointer to draw within 28-12, and then cut the deficit in half on a jumper by Morris at the 3:40 mark. St. Joe's-Green went back up by 16 on a layup by Greene off a pass from Hasan with 3:08 to go in the half. Morris responded though with two straight scores including a bucket off his own miss at the 2:50 mark, and a drive to the left low block for a short jumper at the 2:24 mark for a 30-18 Little Falcons lead.

St. Joseph's then scored eight of the next nine points over a span of 2:14. Highlighting the run was a layup by Woody at the 2:12 mark, a baseline jumper from Hasan at the 1:14 mark, and an offensive rebound and putback by Finan with 10.5 seconds to go in the half. P-Way's only point during this stretch was a one of two showing from the foul line by Charles Gratz at the 37.6 second mark. The Little Chiefs did go into the locker room with some momentum as Freeney raced through traffic up the floor for a last second shot that was good, and made the score 38-21 St. Joe's-Green at the half. The Little Falcons got the first points of the second half for a 19 point lead before Claybrook answered with a layup at the 6:24 mark to close the gap again to 17 at 40-23.

The bucket sparked a 17-9 spurt over a span of 4:58 for the Little Chiefs. Standing out during this run was Freeney with a flip shot for a layin at the 5:45 mark, a short jumper at the 4:59 mark, and a three pointer at the 4:25 mark for a 43-30 St. Joe's-Green lead. Piscataway then scored 8 of the next 14 points including a jumper by Khari Cain at the 1:26 mark to make it an 11 point game. St. Joseph's responded to the charge though by closing out the period with a 9-2 run all on three pointers for an 18 point advantage heading into the fourth. Finan then opened the fourth by giving a fake, and dribbling to his right for a jumper from the left side that made the score, 60-40 with 7:37 left.

Claybrook tried to get the Little Chiefs going again with a layup off a pass from Naadir Jackson at the 6:32 mark. Freeney then followed that up with a steal and an assist on a layup by Morris at the 6:15 mark. St. Joe's-Green would get a score before Claybrook connected on a pull-up jumper at the 5:18 mark for a 62-46 Little Falcons lead. Following a 30 second timeout by St. Joseph's, Pat Skowronski got into the act with a one of two showing from the line at the 3:57 mark, and a turnaround jumper in the left low block off an inbounds by Fitzpatrick at the 3:05 mark for a 65-48 lead. Piscataway closed out the contest by scoring four of the last six points for a 67-52 St. Joe's-Green victory. With the victory, the Little Falcons improved to 8-2 overall including a 3-1 mark in the GMC Red. See some extra throughts on this game in the GMC Hoops Blogosphere.

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