{"id":1443,"date":"2015-02-03T22:38:46","date_gmt":"2015-02-04T03:38:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mhsbasketball.com\/site\/?p=1443"},"modified":"2015-02-03T22:39:21","modified_gmt":"2015-02-04T03:39:21","slug":"hunterdon-central-boys-basketball-falls-to-montgomery-60-53","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mhsbasketball.com\/site\/archives\/1443\/","title":{"rendered":"Hunterdon Central boys basketball falls to Montgomery, 60-53"},"content":{"rendered":"

http:\/\/highschoolsports.nj.com\/news\/article\/-1008661949381010509\/hunterdon-central-53-at-montgomery-60-boys-basketball\/<\/a><\/p>\n

\"Hunterdon<\/p>\n

MONTGOMERY \u2013 Hunterdon Central<\/a> led for much of the game, but the last three minutes belonged to Montgomery.<\/p>\n

A late surge led by Chase Ta pushed Montgomery to a 60-53 home win on Tuesday night.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe knew this was going to be a tough game,\u201d Hunterdon Central coach Mike Falco said. \u201cThey\u2019re the No. 1 team in our section, Central Jersey, Group 4, and they\u2019ve been playing really well. So as much as we wanted the victory and we don\u2019t want to say there\u2019s any moral victories, I\u2019m happy with our effort.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was a gut-check for us,\u201d Ta, a senior, said. \u201cIt was Senior Night, we started off slow, we were lacking mentally because of the festivities. It was a big game for us, I think it was our best win so far this season.\u201d<\/p>\n

With the score tied at 48-48, Ta took over, scoring eight of his 22 points over the final 2:54. The senior guard started with an and-one layup to break the deadlock. On the next possession, he stole a pass and ran the length of the floor to put the Cougars up five, a lead they would never give up.<\/p>\n

\u201cAfter the and-one I felt like the momentum was totally changed,\u201d Ta said. \u201cThat\u2019s probably the loudest our gym\u2019s been all year and I could tell they were starting to get scared, starting to get stagnant on offense.\u201d<\/p>\n

Early on, it was all Hunterdon Central, as the Red Devils hit two of their first five 3-point attempts and raced to an 11-4 lead. Six of those points came from Tucker Richardson<\/a>.<\/p>\n

But a string of turnovers and fouls quickly let Montgomery back in the game. The Cougars responded with a 9-2 run of their own to tie the game at 13-13 after one quarter.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe knew that (our team) was going to respond,\u201d Montgomery coach Kris Grundy said. \u201cObviously we didn\u2019t want it to be as close as it was, but the response was spot on, right where we needed it to be and what I expect from our senior group.\u201d<\/p>\n

The second quarter began more evenly, with the teams trading baskets for most of the frame. But a late spurt \u2013 led by Colin McNeil<\/a>, who finished with 15 points \u2013 gave Hunterdon Central a three-point edge at the half.<\/p>\n

That lead would last for the next 13 minutes, but in the end, the Cougars\u2019 surge was just too much for the Red Devils to handle.<\/p>\n

\u201cI thought we played well as a team,\u201d McNeil said. \u201cIt was a collective effort, guys off the bench gave good minutes. It came down to the last two minutes and they pulled it out.\u201d<\/p>\n

Max Johnson<\/a> added 11 points and Cole Hanntz<\/a> had 10 for the Red Devils.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

http:\/\/highschoolsports.nj.com\/news\/article\/-1008661949381010509\/hunterdon-central-53-at-montgomery-60-boys-basketball\/ MONTGOMERY \u2013 Hunterdon Central led for much of the game, but the last three minutes belonged to Montgomery. A late surge led by Chase Ta pushed Montgomery to a 60-53 home win on Tuesday night. \u201cWe knew this was going to be a tough game,\u201d Hunterdon Central coach Mike Falco said. \u201cThey\u2019re the No. […]<\/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-1443","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mhsbasketball.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1443","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=1443"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/mhsbasketball.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1443\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1445,"href":"https:\/\/mhsbasketball.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1443\/revisions\/1445"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mhsbasketball.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1443"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mhsbasketball.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1443"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mhsbasketball.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1443"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}