Passaic County Final Four Setup! Kennedy,Eastside,Wayne Valley And West Milford Advance!

Paterson……..While no team shot the lights out of the ball, Wayne Valley,Kennedy,Eastside and West Milford all gutted out wins in the Passaic County Tournament Quarterfinals! Eastside will face West Milford and Wayne Valley goes up against Kennedy at Kennedy Highschool next Saturday:

                              Eastside 40    Passaic Valley 34

Senior David Burgos made a big “triple”and another bucket late in the contest to help Eastside advance to the Semifinals in a 40-34 win over Passaic Valley! The game was slow paced in the 1st half as P.V. held a 15-11 halftime lead! Eastside picked it up in the 2nd half, going to a fullcourt press and creating some turnovers and outscoring Valley 16-7 in the 3rd quarter to take a 27-22 lead! The game was back and fourth in the 4th with Eastside finally taking control behind the late play of Burgos(top right)! He finished the game with 13 points and 5 assists! Senior Carl Barrett(bottom right) knocked down 3 huge”triples” in the game to finish with 9 points, while Senior Najee Seabrooks and Sophomore Quatier Jackson each made a big difference down low for the Ghosts! Senior Dave Clough led Passaic Valley with 11 points and 6 rebounds while Senior Nick DiCristina added 10! 

                            West Milford  48      Wayne Hills  37

Senior’s Connor Healy and Tyler Coyle hit big free throws late and West Milford’s defense in the 4th quarter helped get passed a game Wayne Hills team 48-37! West Milford led early, but Hills behind the play of Senior’s Matt Heskins and Mike Driesse came back to take a 32-31 lead at the end of the 3rd quarter! West Milford preceded to hold Wayne Hills to 6 fourth quarter points, while scoring 17 themselves! Healy made 2 layups to give them the lead for good and Wayne Hills had trouble putting the ball in the basket! Healy(top right) led the scoring for West Milford with 16 points and 5 rebounds while Tyler Coyle(bottom right) added 11 points, 7 rebounds and 4 steals! Heskins and Driesse each scored 15 points for Wayne Hills!

                                   Kennedy  47              DePaul  42

 When you talk about a Kennedy win,more than likely the story is about Senior’s Dawon Lighty and Jhamir White! But this day was about Senior Kaheem Davis and Junior Jamarr Ellerbee! While DePaul did a great job of neutralizing Lighty and White, Kennedy needed another option! they found two as the 1st half  Ellerbee kept them in the game and in the 2nd half Davis took them home! DePaul led most of the game behind the play of Junior Davon Jacobs, Junior Nafee Lighty and Sophomore Joshua Marquez! The 1st half DePaul led 19-17 but Ellerbee(top right) had 8 of Kennedy’s 17 to keep them close! With points hard to come by for both teams, the extra effort of each squad was going to be the difference! In the 4th quarter it was Davis(bottom right) who made a couple putbacks and knocked down a few free throws on offense and was intimidating on defense! White joined in late by making free throws  and finished with 10 points! Ellerbee led the scoring for Kennedy with 14 points,while Davis scored 13 points,grabbed 9 rebounds and blocked 5 shots! Jacobs finished with 14 points and 9 rebounds for DePaul while Marquez added 10 points,4 rebounds and 3 assists! Mas Aronson scored 9 points and Nafee had 7 points,6 rebounds and 4 blocked shots!

                   Wayne Valley 45      Passaic County Tech  34

Wayne Valley slowed down the tempo and put Passaic Tech to sleep and when P.C.T. woke up it was all over and Valley had a 45-34 upset victory! P.C.T could never get it going as Wayne Valley methodically ran their sets and played a half court game against a team that wanted to pick up the tempo! Senior Andrew Herasimtchuk(top right) played big for Wayne Valley scoring 18 points and pulling down 13 boards! Junior Jay Mustafa(bottom right) scored 11 points,dished out 6 assists and grabbed 5 rebounds as Valley took control in the 3rd quarter pushing the lead to eight 33-25 at the end of the stanza and withstanding any mini comeback Tech would try! Only Junior Shackquiel Scott  seemed to have energy for P.C.T. scoring 11 points with 8 rebounds and 3 blocked shots and throwing down two follow up dunks off misses that still could not ignite the Bulldogs!

NOTE: No team scored 50 points in their contest in the four games played! Now i’m not sure but can’t believe that has ever happened in modern day Passaic County Tournament games where there was four games in the day! Somebody had to give 50!