http:\/\/www.mycentraljersey.com\/apps\/pbcs.dll\/article?AID=2014302170050<\/p>\n
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The quality of the high school basketball played along Route 206 has risen steadily during the past decade.<\/p>\n
It will reach a fever pitch on Saturday when border rivals Montgomery and Hillsborough meet in the Somerset County Tournament semifinals.<\/p>\n
Second-seeded Montgomery is 20-0 and third-seeded Hillsborough is 16-2. They were supposed to meet in a Skyland Conference crossover last week but it got snowed out. That only adds to the anticipation for the semifinal, which tips at 6 p.m. The other semifinal pits top-seeded Gill St. Bernard\u2019s against fourth-seeded Ridge at 4 p.m. Both games take place at Montgomery (the site was pre-determined).<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s a great matchup,\u201d said Rutgers Prep coach Tim Ortelli, whose team lost to Hillsborough and Montgomery this season. \u201cYou\u2019ve got two teams that are senior dominated. I like both teams. It\u2019s a push, but Montgomery\u2019s favored because they get the opportunity to play it on their home court.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ortelli\u2019s home-court comment was made tongue-in-cheek because people used to complain that his dominant Bridgewater-Raritan teams had an edge when the final was played at Bridgewater\u2019s middle school. Like those Panthers, Montgomery\u2019s knack for winning game after game is turning heads.<\/p>\n
\u201cEverybody is getting into this,\u201d Montgomery coach Kris Grundy said. \u201cYou go into Wawa, you go into ShopRite, you go anywhere and people are like, \u2018Coach, the guys are playing great.\u2019 \u201d<\/p>\n
Balance is the key. Go-to seniors Justin Kovacevich (17.5 ppg) and Greg Tarca (13.9 ppg) are long, versatile and battle-tested. Junior point guard Chase Ta (8.9 ppg) has emerged as a playmaker and on-ball defender. Tim Youreneff (9.4 ppg), Alex Miller (8 ppg) and Darron Wallace (5.4 ppg) fill their roles nicely.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe definitely knew this was possible, to be where we are,\u201d Tarca said. \u201cIt helped us a little bit that nobody else thought it was possible. We\u2019ve been playing with that chip on our shoulder.\u201d<\/p>\n
Montgomery\u2019s lone county banner came in the mid-80s, when there was a separate tournament for small schools and the Cougars were Group I. In the current format, they\u2019ve never made the final.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe realize a lot of what we\u2019ve done so far this season hasn\u2019t been done before in Montgomery,\u201d Tarca said. \u201cIt\u2019s another thing that\u2019s motivating us.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hillsborough\u2019s never won the SCT, having lost to Bridgewater-Raritan in the 1999 final and Franklin in the 2002 final. The Raiders\u2019 rivalry with Montgomery is friendly, starting at the top.<\/p>\n
\u201cIan (Progin) and I don\u2019t particularly like this game too much because we are such good friends,\u201d said Grundy, referring to Hillsborough\u2019s skipper. \u201cWhen we\u2019re not playing each other, the first game I look for when I get on the bus or into the coaches\u2019 room is Hillsborough\u2019s. I\u2019m rooting like heck for them. It\u2019s a shame one of us has to go home Saturday disappointed.\u201d<\/p>\n
One group that won\u2019t be bummed? Local basketball fans. They should get their money\u2019s worth.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s going to be exciting,\u201d Grundy said. \u201cThey have two losses and everybody knows who their two losses are to, Linden and Gill. We\u2019ve been fortunate enough to escape unscathed at this point. It\u2019s a big rivalry. The place is going to be packed.\u201d<\/p>\n
He added, \u201cThis is the game everybody has been waiting for, so here we go.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
http:\/\/www.mycentraljersey.com\/apps\/pbcs.dll\/article?AID=2014302170050 \u00a0 The quality of the high school basketball played along Route 206 has risen steadily during the past decade. It will reach a fever pitch on Saturday when border rivals Montgomery and Hillsborough meet in the Somerset County Tournament semifinals. Second-seeded Montgomery is 20-0 and third-seeded Hillsborough is 16-2. They were supposed to meet […]<\/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-1199","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mhsbasketball.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1199","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=1199"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/mhsbasketball.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1199\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1201,"href":"https:\/\/mhsbasketball.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1199\/revisions\/1201"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mhsbasketball.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1199"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mhsbasketball.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1199"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mhsbasketball.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1199"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}