Cougars edged for sectional title
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(view as single page) By Justin Feil, Assistant Sports Editor
Kris Grundy walked outside two hours before the Montgomery High School boys basketball team was to host Trenton High for the Central Jersey Group IV championship to give his father a ticket. The Cougars head coach needed a lot more. ”I saw the line all the way down past the board office,” Grundy said. “I was able to talk to some community members and thank them for coming. I got in the gym and saw the fans here at 5 o’clock. It was cool. It was great. I’m glad my kids got to experience it.” More than 1,800 raucous fans were on hand, and an MHS administrator said another 500 fans had to be turned away, to see the top-seeded Cougars host second-seeded Trenton, but the foundation for what helped Montgomery get there didn’t have that audience. ”No one’s in the gym at 6:45 in the morning with us in the summer,” Grundy said. “No one’s in the gym when we go from 6:45 in the morning workouts to 7:45 practice and from 7:45 practice to 5 o’clock at night scrimmages. No one is there. There aren’t 1,900 people in the gym. No one is there, and nobody sees how hard we work, nobody sees the commitment and nobody sees the heart, which is the most important thing. That’s what we’ve built here — the commitment to family and hard work and determination.” That hard work enabled them to earn a shot at the championship, and their determination and commitment to each other kept them in a title game when the Cougars weren’t at their best. MHS missed plenty of field goals and foul shots, lost their top player to foul trouble for more than nine straight minutes in the first half and their other starting forward to foul trouble 33 seconds into the second quarter, gave up a 15-2 run to end the third quarter, and yet still battled back from a 10-point fourth-quarter deficit to get two chances to send it to overtime in the final 10 seconds before falling, 59-57, Tuesday night at the Cougars’ Den.”They’re so resilient,” said Grundy after his team finished the year with a school-record 27 wins and two losses. “After the tough five-point loss to Hillsborough in the county semifinals, a lot of other teams would have packed it in, a lot of other teams would have gone in the tank. Not is group. They just continued to battle. We got better in practice. The next goal was the state tournament. We kept getting better and kept getting better.” The Cougars stared every obstacle thrown their way in the face Tuesday, and each time found a way to rally. In the first half, without Justin Kovacevich in the game, the Cougars didn’t have much of an inside presence, but Chase Ta picked up the slack. When Darron Wallace also had to sit due to foul trouble, freshman Matt Remsen was thrown into the fire and delivered a picture-perfect pass to Ta for a backdoor layup. |
”That’s why we go out and play Elizabeth and play Linden and anybody who wants to play us, because it gets you ready for tournament time,” Grundy said. “We weren’t intimidated at all tonight. We expected to win the game.”We had to play the entire second quarter without Justin,” he added. “We had a breakdown right before halftime and they got a 3. It should have been a one-point game.”
The Cougars roared out of the gates after halftime with an 8-1 run with four different players scoring their four baskets — Greg Tarca on a follow, Ta on a pull-up jumper, Wallace on a layup and Kovacevich with a post move. Trenton answered with a 15-2 run, with a pull-up by Kovacevich briefly tying it at 37-37.
”We got up by three points, and we kind of had them where we wanted them, but I just thought our offensive sets at that point we’re great,” Grundy said. “The basket that put us up three, we got Justin on a pin-down screen and he was able to finish. And then we got a stop and had a chance to go up five, and then we started taking shots that weren’t the best for us.
”We watched a lot of film on Trenton and they try to get teams to shoot between 15 and 20 seconds. They just want you to launch, and they get out and go. We had worked all day (Monday) on just being patient while looking to score. I don’t think in that stretch we did a good job of doing that.”
The Cougars faced a 47-37 deficit to start the fourth quarter. It was still 49-39 a minute into the fourth quarter, and it was 55-47 with barely three minutes to go.
”I told my guys, we’ve been in every situation imaginable this year — and we have been — and I knew we weren’t out of it,” Grundy said. “I knew the way that Trenton plays, they weren’t going to stop shooting even though they were up 10.”Our guys hit some big shots, and battled back and got some defensive stops, but we just couldn’t get over the hump for whatever reason.”
They nearly did. Kovacevich’s jumper and two free throws surrounded a Trenton score, but a big 3-pointer from Tim Youreneff brought the Cougars within three points with still 2:19 left. A Ta layup cut the lead to three again after a Trenton score, and a Kovacevich free throw made it 59-57 with 1:11 left as MHS came up with several stops at the defensive end.
”We went 1-3-1 and it worked for us,” Grundy said. “We were able to get some turnovers and guys hit some shots. Timmy Youreneff played fantastic tonight. Chase Ta played fantastic tonight.”The Cougars missed a free throw with 10 seconds left, but Alex Miller rebounded the miss to set up one final attempt to tie it. Ta got the ball inside to Kovacevich, who Trenton’s defense collapsed on and got a piece of his shot attempt.
”We got him the ball on the block,” Grundy said. “It just didn’t work out. We got it where we wanted to. It just didn’t materialize.”
It was a heart-breaking end to a season filled with highlight after highlight. The Cougars saw the fruits of their off-season work pay off during a winter that they will never forget. They just never wanted it to end.
”I just wanted this game for my seniors and my kids,” Grundy said. “It’s such a special group. They love playing together. They love sharing the game. They’re so committed. They do absolutely everything I ask them to do year-round. And I just wanted it so badly for them. I told them in the locker room, it hurts now, but make sure you walk around that school tomorrow, and when they tell you that you had a great season, they’re not blowing smoke.
”Twenty-seven wins, that’s a school record in any sport. You brought the conference championship back to Montgomery. We had it for three years, we lost it to Ridge last year. Now it’s back with us. That’s something else nobody can take from you. For whatever reason, it wasn’t in the cards for us.”
Ta led MHS with 19 points, Kovacevich came back to record 15 points, Youreneff had 11 points and Tarca had eight points. The Cougars will graduate a trio of starters in Kovacevich, Tarca and Youreneff along with a captain, Ananth Chenimineni. They helped produce a season for the ages.”I just told the whole group, learn from these seniors,” Grundy said. “They can teach you a lot about what commitment year-round is all about and getting in the weight room and getting bigger, faster and stronger. Getting in the gym and getting 1,000 shots up using The Gun. Learn from these guys. If you want to get back here, if you want to play for a Central Jersey Group IV title, these are the things you have to do.”
