click here for story<\/a>\u00a0 – Princeton Packet.<\/p>\n
| \u00a0<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n \u00a0\u00a0<\/div>\n \u00a0The moment last season ended with a loss to Trenton in the Central Jersey Group IV tournament, the Montgomery High boys basketball team started looking towards this season.<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u201dThey have been working from the day we lost to Trenton last year until opening night,\u201d Montgomery coach Kris Grundy said. \u201cThrough all of our practices they have been very committed to what we are doing. This has the potential to be a historic season. No Montgomery team has ever three-peated in the (Skyland) conference and this team has a chance to do that.\u201d<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The Cougars opened the season in promising fashion with wins over North Plainfield and Delaware Valley. In both games they relied on their trademark defense to get the job done.<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u201dWe started off well,\u201d said senior Kevin Johnson, who is in his first season as the Cougars\u2019 starting point guard. We still some things we have to work on. We\u2019re a really young team and we\u2019ll get used to each other and things will come together.\u201d<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Johnson is one of four new starters in the lineup for the Cougars, who return only Tim Maloney from last year\u2019s top five. But no matter who is on the court, the Cougars know their identity comes from their defense.<\/p><\/div>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u201dWe put in a new defense and it seems to be working well,\u201d Johnson said. \u201cThere are still things we have to work on and those are things we have to strive to improve. We know that defense wins championships.\u201d<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Added Grundy: \u201cWe are hanging our hat on defense first. Maloney is back, Mike Rubayo played a little bit last year. Johnson played a lot as the first guard off the bench. Justin Kovacevich didn\u2019t play much at all but he got some varsity time. We have a lot of new guys playing at the varsity level for the first time.\u201d<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0It may take the Cougars a little time to gain the experience they need, but they know that if they keep working hard, positive results will come.<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u201dLast year we had nine seniors, so we lost most of our primary players,\u201d Johnson said. \u201cMe being a veteran of the team, I know a lot of expected of me. I have some experience and feel like I have to lead more than in the past. As a point guard I am an extension of the coach on the court.<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u201dI like it because it I would rather be an extension of the coach than sit back and listen to someone else tell me what to do. We needed a lot of guys to step up and they have been getting used to it and doing well. Since we are a young team we felt people would be more nervous than they have been on the court.\u201d<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The Cougars opened with a 71-34 win over North Plainfield, then held DelVal to 39 points in a 60-39 win.<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u201dEvery day the coaches tell us to look up at the banner because we have been conference champs and we don\u2019t want to be the year we\u2019re not up on that banner and go as far as we can in the tournaments,\u201d Johnson said. \u201cWe have all worked hard since last season ended. We are young so we have to work hard.<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u201dBeing a lead guard like I have to be and as a senior, it is all tied into winning games and getting guys to work hard and do their best.\u201d<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0With such a young roster, Grundy is happy to be able to put the ball in the hands of a player like Johnson.<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u201dHe has improved a tremendous amount since last year,\u201d Grundy said. \u201cHe is a gym rat who is working on his game all the time. He had a good off-season and had been a leader for us. I always say the point guard is an extension of the coach on the floor and he has been great.\u201d<\/p><\/div>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" click here for story\u00a0 – Princeton Packet. \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0The moment last season ended with a loss to Trenton in the Central Jersey Group IV tournament, the Montgomery High boys basketball team started looking towards this season. \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u201dThey have been working from the day we lost to Trenton last year until opening night,\u201d Montgomery coach […]<\/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-734","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mhsbasketball.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/734","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=734"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/mhsbasketball.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/734\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":737,"href":"https:\/\/mhsbasketball.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/734\/revisions\/737"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mhsbasketball.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=734"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mhsbasketball.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=734"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mhsbasketball.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=734"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}} |