<\/a><\/p>\nThe highly anticipated rematch between Skyland Conference Raritan Division powerhouses Montgomery and Ridge bore little similarity to their Jan. 16 defensive slugfest, but Montgomery\u2019s 62-50 victory on Tuesday night was no less exciting.<\/p>\n
Ridge (15-3) jumped out to an early lead behind Derek Lyons, who scored the game\u2019s first five points on his way to a team-leading 16. After a Montgomery (19-0) \u2014 which clinched the division title with the win \u2014 timeout and a Darron Wallace 3-pointer cut the deficit, Montgomery pulled to within six points at the end of the first period, trailing 19-13.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019re an explosive team,\u201d said Montgomery head coach Kris Grundy of the Ridge team, who dropped their second contest to his Cougars this season. \u201cThey shoot the ball real well. It was obvious they came out tonight with something to prove.\u201d<\/p>\n
The pace slowed considerably in the second period, allowing Montgomery\u2019s defense to cool off Ridge\u2019s high-powered offense, led by Lyons and Dan McCreesh.<\/p>\n
Montgomery\u2019s offense began to wake up as the clock moved toward halftime, and the game\u2019s momentum shifted considerably with three minutes to go in the second period, as Alex Miller nailed a 3-pointer to pull the Cougars to within two.<\/p>\n
Just two minutes later, Montgomery\u2019s leading scorer Chase Ta, who led the way with 21 points and five assists, sank a foul shot to tie the game at 27. It was the start of a 6-0 run for the Cougars that was capped with another Miller 3-pointer, giving Montgomery a 32-27 lead at the half.<\/p>\n
The third quarter began with Ridge attempting to gain the momentum back, as Derek Lyons, who scored 18 points, drained a long 3-pointer in the opening minutes to keep the pressure on and pull the Red Devils to within two, 32-30. Montgomery answered with a steady diet of Ta, who dazzled the crowd with two brilliant spin moves in the paint as well as a pair of assists.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s turned into a heck of a player,\u201d said Ridge head coach Brian Feath of Ta, who led Montgomery in scoring and steals. \u201cHe looked real good on those pick-and-rolls tonight, his first step is much more explosive. He was making great decisions, he was getting inside the paint on us.\u2019\u2019<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
http:\/\/www.mycentraljersey.com\/article\/20140211\/NJSPORTS0150\/302110096\/Montgomery-upends-Ridge-improves-19-0 The highly anticipated rematch between Skyland Conference Raritan Division powerhouses Montgomery and Ridge bore little similarity to their Jan. 16 defensive slugfest, but Montgomery\u2019s 62-50 victory on Tuesday night was no less exciting. Ridge (15-3) jumped out to an early lead behind Derek Lyons, who scored the game\u2019s first five points on his way […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1171","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mhsbasketball.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1171","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mhsbasketball.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mhsbasketball.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mhsbasketball.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mhsbasketball.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1171"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/mhsbasketball.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1171\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1176,"href":"https:\/\/mhsbasketball.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1171\/revisions\/1176"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mhsbasketball.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1171"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mhsbasketball.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1171"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mhsbasketball.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1171"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}