Oradell……..The 55th Annual Bergen County Jamboree got started with first round action! At Bergen Catholic Highschool four games took place as Ridgefield Park, Hackensack, Elmwood Park and Bergen Catholic all move on to the next round!

                    Ridgefield Park  46            Cresskill 35

    Senior Thomas Gerken(top right) led Ridgefield Park with 15 points and Senior Nelson Mendez(bottom right) added a double-double as the Scarlets will move on to play Pascack Hills in the next round, beating Cresskill 46-35! The game was slow paced and close throughout, but Ridgefield locked up on the defensive end outscoring Cresskill 13-5 in the final quarter!Ridgefield Park also got clutch play from Senior point guard Jason Pello who scored all 7 of his points in the final stanza, including a huge”triple”late in the contest! Junior Joseph Haines also played well with 8 points and 8 rebounds and guard Ahmed Garnea dished out 5 assists to go with his 6 points and 5 boards! Mendez finished with 10 points and 10 rebounds for his double-double! Cresskill was led by Junior Rich Van Cleft with 13 points and 6 rebounds and Junior Ryan Feulner with 11!

                          Elmwood Park  89     Wood Ridge  83

    In one of the funnest games seen this season, Elmwood Park went up and down with the high scoring Wood Ridge team and pulled off a 89- 83 win! Elmwood Park Senior Ryan Velez(top right)  and Wood Ridge Junior Vin O’Bierne(bottom right) each showed why they are two of the top players in Northern New Jersey! Velez filled up the stat sheet with 27 points, 7 rebounds, 4 assists, 6 blocks and 4 steals! O’ Bierne was just as good scoring 32 points and setting a Jamboree record with 25 rebounds to go with 2 blocked shots! But this game was going to be decided on which player was going to get the most help from their teammates! In the end Elmwood Park got a little more! Sophomore Dino Pajazetovic  came off the bench to score 20 points and 5 rebounds, Sophomore guard Andre Fraiser(#14) hit 4″triples” on his way to 16 points and Sophomore Nick Smith added a double-double with 12 points and 10 rebounds! Wood Ridge Sophomore Mike Gibney(left) added 25 points, but Sophomore Gary Whritenour sat a big amount of the game and never could get in the flow as he made a”triple”but then fouled out a minute left! He’s a player that averages 18 points a game! the game was close the entire way as Elmwood Park had a chance to put it away but kept the door open by only making 1 of 10 free throws at the end until Senior Diego Amoroso made the last two to ice the game!Elmwood Park will now go against top seeded Teaneck next!

                         Hackensack  78         Rutherford  47

   Hackensack will move on to play Dwight Englewood in the next round as they never gave Rutherford a chance in this game! Hackensack had 4 players in double figures as they rotated 10 deep and never missed a beat! Freshman Rashard Figures led the attack with 19 points to go with 6 rebounds! Sophomore point guard Chris Myers(pictured) added 13 points and 4 assists! Sophomore’s Steven Zweil and Keon Lewis added 10 and 11 points respectively for the Comets! Senior Bright Mensah added a spark with 8 points, 4 boards and 2 steals and Sophomore Eugene Marshall added 7 points and 6 boards! Senior LeRon Dillard led Rutherford with 19 points and Junior Kevin McGorry added 9 points and 7 rebounds!

                    Bergen Catholic  63      Saddle Brook 35

        Bergen Catholic will meet Old Tappan in the next round of the Jamboree as they took a 19- 5 1st quarter lead and coasted to a 63-35 win against an over matched Saddle Brook team! Senior Eric Flanagan(pictured) led the attack with 14 points and Senior Mark Richards added 10 points and 10 rebounds for a double-double and Freshman Nadi Beciri came off the bench to score 8 points with 7 rebounds! Junior Chris Alonso led Saddle Brook with 8 points, while Senior Mike Gallo chipped in with 7 points and 7 boards! 

  Other Jamboree Scores: Leading scorers:

   St. Mary 71                        Demarest 62

Harun Tolbert 26            Loran Kaleci 20

Kyle Dadika   16               Dan Crimmins 15

  Ramapo  58                    Queen Of Peace 42

Tyler Ward  21                Jim McLane  16

Matt Bunting  14

Bergenfield  59            Bogota  44

Corey White  16             Josuali Vasquez 21

Kevin Pineda  15

St. Joseph  68                 Wallington  48

Terrence McNair  13       Peter Polan  17

Wayne………Senior Xavier Nieves is a multi talented player who can do a lot of things on the court and today he needed to do that against a tough West Milford team! Nieves(#2) scored 23 points, grabbed 9 rebounds and dished out 6 assists as Passaic County Tech beat the Highlanders 64-53! This game could easily be a preview of a County semi finals or finals game and each team came out playing in that manner! It was a 2 point game 31-29 at the half as Nieves had 12 in the stanza! West Milford was getting it from Senior Connor Healy with 10 points and Senior Jordan Wright who had 13 at the half including 3″triples”! In the 3rd quarter Tech played much better defense, getting in the guards face and upping the tempo! West Milford was held to 7 points in the quarter as Tech moved ahead 46-38! That’s when Nieves and the Bulldogs took control of the contest as West Milford,with the exception of Healy got cold from the perimeter and Tech got some easy buckets on leak outs! Sophomore Isaac Williams scored 12 points for Tech, while Junior Assaad Hinton added 7 points,5 rebounds and 2 steals! Junior Shackquiel Scott finished the contest with 8 rebounds and more importantly blocked 4 shots! Healy(pictured in black) finished with 21 points knocking down 5″triples” and pulling down 10 rebounds! Wright only scored 2 in the 2nd half, finishing with 15 for the game! West Milford’s Senior Tyler Coyle grabbed 9 boards! Tech’s Senior Washon Franklin pulled down 7 boards himself in the contest!      

     Teaneck(point guard Shakir Lindsey pictured) was awarded the #1 seed in The 55th Annual Bergen County Jamboree! The Jamboree committee chose 24 teams for the event. The most teams ever picked for the tournament because of the parity of the squads this season! Defending champ Paramus Catholic grabbed the #2 seed, while Don Bosco Prep, Pascack Hills( only undefeated team) and Dwight Englewood got the top 5 seeds! Tenafly, Pascack Valley and Old Tappan round out the first 8 seeds who all get 1st round byes! Tournament starts Sunday!

Seeding Order:

1.  Teaneck

2.  Paramus Catholic

3.  Don Bosco Prep

4.  Pascack Hills

5.  Dwight Englewood

6.  Tenafly

7.  Pascack Valley

8.  Old Tappan

9.  Bergen Catholic

10. St. Josephs

11.  Ramapo

12. Hackensack

13. Ridgefield

14. Bergenfield

15.  Demarest

16.  Wood Ridge

17.  Elmwood Park

18.  St. Mary

19.  Bogota

20.  Cresskill

21.   Rutherford

22.   Queen Of Peace

23.   Wallington

24.   Saddle Brook

Games:  Sunday January 30, @ Bergen Catholic

11:00 am    Cresskill vs  Ridgefield Park

12:45 pm    Elmwood Park  vs  Wood Ridge

2:30 pm      Rutherford  vs   Hackensack

4:15  pm      Saddle Brook  vs  Bergen Catholic

 @ Westwood Highschool

1:00 pm  St. Mary  vs  Demarest

2:45 pm  Queen Of Peace  vs  Ramapo

@  Old Tappan

1:00 pm   Bogota  vs  Bergenfield

2:45  pm   Wallington  vs  St. Josephs