St. Thomas Aquinas’ Jalen Pichardo guards against Colonia’s Saivon Pressley in a GMC White Division game on February 3, 2022 (Photo: Mike Pavlichko)
Sure, it’s been a couple of years since the last full Greater Middlesex Conference Tournament, and it’s been one more year since St. Joseph of Metuchen last made a GMC Tournament final, but the Falcons are regulars at this sort of thing. After all, 2020 was the first year they had missed the title game in 13 years.
But there will be no underdog feeling on the Colonia side of things tonight, when the third-seeded Patriots (20-3) take on St. Joe’s (19-5) in the GMCT semifinals tonight at Monroe High School, for a chance to go and face either Monroe or St. Thomas Aquinas for all the marbles.
They believe they belong, and well they should, with only three losses all year: twice to the Trojans, and once out-of-conference to Lenape.
Central Jersey Sports Radio will have full coverage of both semifinal games as Mike Pavlichko calls all the action, beginning with pregame at 4:45 for the Colonia-St. Joe’s matchup at 5:00. The second semifinal is set for 7 pm. Click here to listen to both games for free, with no registration required.
Colonia is not nearly the regular to the GMC Tournament finals party that the Falcons are. Their last trip was fairly recent, in 2018, when Brandon Hall – now an assistant at FDU under Greg Herenda – was in charge. They last won it in 2015, when Chris Chiera – whose wife, Sandi, is now the school’s girls’ coach – was on the bench.
Senior Saivon Pressley has been leading the way at 19.3 points per game, but more than that, has been scoring at his most prolific rate of the season in the team’s last five games, pouring in no less than 21 a contest during that stretch, averaging 23.5 per game.
Click below to hear Mike Pavlichko talk to head coach Jose Rodriguez about the Patriots’ recent stretch, and tonight’s matchup with St. Joe’s: