Welcome to the GMC Hoops Notebook section on the Linden Summer League. This is a new feature that we are presenting here on our web site in response to all the team camps and summer leagues that are being run. This is basically going to be a section, where we'll talk about some of the goings on in the league as well as some games or players that have stood out during the course of the season.

GMC HOOPS NOTEBOOK: JULY 29, 2005--LINDEN SUMMER LEAGUE

Like last year, our coverage of Linden was limited, but still was enough to get a good feel for the GMC teams playing in the league. The only difference will be that we'll have a summaries section for games that we covered, an the games will be more detailed. Like the previous two years we covered the league, there were fourteen teams overall divided into two divisions.

One division, Division A, competed on Monday and Wednesday nights, and had six teams: Linden, Roselle Catholic, Immaculata, Weequahic, Wagner of Staten Island, and Colonia. The other division, Division B, competed on Tuesday and Thursday nights, and consisted of eight teams: Linden, Seton Hall Prep, Paterson Kennedy, St. Peter's Prep, East Brunswick, Cardinal McCarrick, Bridgewater-Raritan, and Morristown. Teams that were in the Linden Summer League last year, but didn't return this year were: South Plainfield, Franklin, and St. Mary's of Elizabeth.

South Plainfield, which has a new head coach in Bill Schulte, decided to play in the HawksBasketball Summer SlamFest, where they competed two years ago. Meanwhile, Franklin also had a coaching change with Gary Feath retiring earlier this year, and also moved on to the SlamFest. As of this time, I don't know what league St. Mary's of Elizabeth was in although they had a team playing in the Colonia JV Summer League. As far as the newcomers, Immaculata returned after being in the Elizabeth Summer League in 2004. St. Peter's Prep came over after playing in the Jersey City League in 2004, and Weequahic also came in.

Weequahic, which went 21-4 last season, finished in the Top Ten in Essex County and in Group II according to the Star-Ledger. Meanwhile, St. Peter's Prep improved this season with a 15-11 overall mark, which placed them fourth in the Hudson County Top Ten in the Star-Ledger. The Marauders gave South Plainfield quite a fight before the Tigers came away with a 61-49 decision in the opening round of the John "Butch" Kowal Tournament at Rahway High School over the holidays.

Finally, Immaculata ended up 12-11 overall last year, but reached the semifinals of the Somerset County Tournament including an upset win over Montgomery. The Spartans have four of their starters returning for next season, and will be competing very hard for the Skyland Conference Delaware East Championship. The Spartans moved into the Skyland Conference after being a perennial power in the Mountain Valley Conference.

Looking now at the teams that are returning to the Linden Summer League this summer, we see Roselle Catholic is going to have a rebuilding season with the loss of David Cherry and Kevin Findlay as well as a few others. The Lions went 19-6 last season and gave Seton Hall Prep problems in the Non-Public B North Tournament. Speaking of which, what is there to say about Seton Hall Prep. The defending Tournament of Champions winner went 30-1 this past season. Brandon Costner, the standout big man for the Pirates in 2004-05, is moving on to the ACC and North Carolina State.

Bridgewater-Raritan, which knocked off Linden in the North Jersey Section 2 Group IV Championship, ended up 24-3 overall on the season, and won another Somerset County Tournament title by defeating Franklin. The Panthers will be reloading too now that Jon Katz, Asmar Capers, and Steve Kline have all graduated although don't expect Head Coach Tim Ortelli to settle for that. Paterson Kennedy, which ended up 14-11, finished fourth overall in the Passaic County Top Ten in the Star-Ledger. However, in 2004, the Knights went 20-6 overall so last season was a rebuilding year of sorts for Head Coach, Jim Ring.

Both Morristown and Susan Wagner of Staten Island underwent difficult seasons although the Colonials from the Iron Hills Conference gave Piscataway all it could handle before the Chiefs escaped on a three pointer at the buzzer by Brandon Wilkinson in the Vaughn Stapleton Classic Round-Robin. Morristown has had its struggles for the past several years after being one of the top teams in the state back in 2002-03. Finally, we have Linden, the host school, which had one of its best season's ever although it didn't come away with a sectional and county title.

The home team Tigers ended up 24-3 overall including a dominating upset performance against then top ranked St. Anthony's, 55-40. The Friars were never really the same after that game. However, Linden lost its talented junior point guard, L.J. McGhee to a foot injury and even though freshman Desmond Wade did an outstanding job of filling in for McGhee, the Tigers fell short to St. Patrick's, 77-68 in the UCT and to Bridgewater in the North II Group III final, 46-41. Moving on to the GMC teams, we were able to get a better look at all three teams from the conference this summer.

In total, we saw East Brunswick and Colonia three times, and Cardinal McCarrick twice. Last year, we only managed to see Cardinal McCarrick and South Plainfield once, and our reporter Josh Cohen saw Colonia. So, this year, we have a better idea of how each team did. Colonia ended up with the highest seed of all three GMC teams in the Linden Summer League Classic Tournament. The Patriots, which dominated Roselle Catholic in a regular season tussle, 70-34, ended up with the fifth seed, and matched up against fellow GMC school, East Brunswick in the first round of the tournament.

Even without soon to be junior point guard, Zach Rosen, and despite the fact that it was a defensive struggle, Colonia still managed to pull out the win over the Bears by holding them to just 21 points in a 34-21 victory. Speaking of East Brunswick, the Bears played Cardinal McCarrick earlier in the season, and was ahead at the half by the score of 24-9 before Vincente Rosario sparked the Eagles to a 36-19 second half comeback for a 45-43 victory in the closing seconds. EB opened the summer with a tough task as the Bears took on Seton Hall Prep.

The Pirates jumped out to a 14-4 lead, and had a 31-16 halftime lead when they put the game away for good with a 22-6 third quarter showing, and won, 61-33. The other contest that we saw Cardinal McCarrick play in was in the first round of the Linden Summer League Tournament, where they had a 14-6 first quarter lead off eight Bridgewater turnovers, but let the lead slip away as Bridgewater shut them down the rest of the way for the 50-44 victory. More details on these games will be coming in the summaries section.

Greg Machos
Webmaster/President
GMC Hoops

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