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\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Last year Tim Maloney spent most of the Montgomery High boys basketball team\u2019s run to a Central Jersey Group IV championship watching from the stands.<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0This year, if the Cougars are to make a similar run through the state tournament, Maloney will be playing a prominent role for the Cougars.<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u201dIt\u2019s pretty crazy,\u201d the Montgomery High junior said. \u201cI remember last year being in the stands for the state games and it seems so far away from where I am now playing big minutes. I\u2019m loving it and cherishing every moment that I am out there and playing.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Last year Maloney was on the junior varsity team, not even playing a huge role at that level. But after a summer of hard work he\u2019s now the first player off the bench and a key part of the Cougars\u2019 success this season.<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u201dHe has started some but is basically sixth man,\u201d said Montgomery coach Kris Grundy, whose team is 14-10 and won the Skyland Conference Raritan Division championship this year. \u201cHe is doing a great job. Every time the game is over or I see coaches during the week, they are commenting on how impressed they are with him. To see where he has come from since he came to us as a freshman, his development is all from working hard in our program.<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0This year means a final regular season game tonight against Hunterdon Central and then a CJ IV opening round game at Trenton on Monday. The Cougars are seeded 11th in CJ IV after winning the sectional title last year.<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0In other state tournament games on Monday, West Windsor-Plainsboro South is the No. 4 seed in CJ IV and will host Brick Memorial. WW-P North is the No. 8 seed and will host Manalapan. In CJ III, Princeton is seeded No. 9 and will open at No. 8 Hopewell Valley on Tuesday.<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Maloney is looking forward to getting a chance to contribute on the court this season as Montgomery prepares to face Trenton.<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u201dLast year I was on the JV team and then for the state games I was in the stands,\u201d Maloney recalled. \u201cI was at every game. It came on quick for me this year. I put in plenty of hard work over the summer. I was working out five days a week in June and July. I worked on my speed, did a lot of lifting.<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u201dWe\u2019re excited about being in the states. For the younger guys there are never any guarantees. We plan to devote a lot of time to getting better. We won\u2019t have a lot of varsity experience next year but we\u2019re still going to be confident. We just have to work hard. That is what we have done this year and we feel like we\u2019ll be ready for Trenton on Monday.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The Cougars have a history of tournament success under Grundy and they hope that continues.<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u201dWe\u2019ll be well prepared,\u201d Grundy said. \u201cHopefully our games against Linden, Coatesville, Point Pleasant Boro, Immaculata, and so on will have prepared us for the state tournament. That is why we scheduled as well as we did. It helped us in the county tournament, where we held the No. 3 team in the state (Gill-St. Bernard\u2019s) to their lowest point total of the year.<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u201dWe have had some success. When I took over we had not won a state game in nine years. That first year we did not qualify. The next year we lost a close one to Brick and since then we\u2019ve won at least one state game every year and last year went 4-1. We have had some success and understand what it means to have some success and we\u2019ll go down and do the best the we can.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Montgomery has scheduled some good teams in an attempt to prepare for the post-season, which has left the Cougars confident heading into the game at Trenton.<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u201dAll teams have their ups and downs,\u201d Maloney said. \u201cWe\u2019re just going to focus on playing Cougar basketball. If we play the whole 32 minutes the way we know we can play, we\u2019ll be tough to beat. I think we\u2019ll be ready.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\u00a0 http:\/\/www.centraljersey.com\/articles\/2011\/02\/25\/the_princeton_packet\/sports\/doc4d66d51a29403057223824.txt \u00a0\u00a0 Last year Tim Maloney spent most of the Montgomery High boys basketball team\u2019s run to a Central Jersey Group IV championship watching from the stands. \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0This year, if the Cougars are to make a similar run through the state tournament, Maloney will be playing a prominent role for the Cougars. \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u201dIt\u2019s pretty […]<\/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-604","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mhsbasketball.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/604","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=604"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/mhsbasketball.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/604\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":607,"href":"https:\/\/mhsbasketball.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/604\/revisions\/607"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mhsbasketball.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=604"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mhsbasketball.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=604"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mhsbasketball.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=604"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}