Mackenzie Mgbako gets set to take a foul shot Thursday night in the SCT semifinals against Montgomery (Photo: Mike Pavlichko)
They are the No. 1 and No. 2 seeds in the Somerset County Tournament, and the fourth and tenth-ranked teams in the state.
And though they play in the same Skyland Conference, they’re not in the same division, and don’t play each other in the regular season. In fact, they haven’t played since before the pandemic, their last meeting in early February of 2020.
Only three players who played in that game – albeit key ones – will be on the floor this afternoon when 2nd-seed Rutgers Prep (22-2) and top-seed Gill St. Bernard’s (17-6) square off at Montgomery High School for the Somerset County Tournament Championship.
Gill’s Denver Anglin scored 14, and Mackenzie Mgbako 13, while Prep’s Ryan Petit was scoreless but had two assists and two rebounds in a 65-59 win for his Argonauts.
You can hear today’s championship game on Central Jersey Sports Radio at 3pm, with Justin and Chris Tsakonas calling all the action. Click here to listen.
Both teams have a lot of talent. The aforementioned Mgbako is one of the top recruits in the 2023 class nationally, which also includes Camden’s D.J. Wagner, the son of New Jersey’s all-time scoring leader DaJuan Wagner. Mgbako leads the Knights with 19.3 points per game, while Anglin leads the team with 39 triples on the season and will be headed to Georgetown next year.
Rutgers Prep junior Jadin Collins leads the team with 17 points per game, while Cameron Piggee (pronounced “pi-ZHAY”) chips in 15.8. And as a team, they hit from beyond the arc a whopping almost seven times a game, with Piggee having 53 triples on the season
Click below to hear previews with both head coaches: