The Franklin Warriors on Senior Night, 2023. (Source: @fhswarriorsball on Twitter)
You’ll have to forgive the youngest members of Franklin’s boys basketball team for not attending the program’s most recent appearance in the Somerset County Tournament semifinals.
It happened in 2007. They hadn’t been born yet.
Fast forward 16 years, and the Warriors have returned to Somerset County’s Final Four. With their eyes on a championship, they’ll have to get by a familiar foe to continue their postseason run.
Five-seed Franklin travels to top-seeded Rutgers Prep on Thursday night to play for a berth in the County Finals. Central Jersey Sports Radio will broadcast the game live at 7 pm, with the pregame at 6:45 following the girls’ matchup between the same teams at 5:00. Mike Pavlichko and Dom Savino will call all the action. Click here to listen.
The Warriors are hoping the third time is the charm against Rutgers Prep, which won both of the regular-season meetings between the crosstown rivals. Both games were decided by single digits.
The more recent of the two games happened more than a month ago, though. And since then, Franklin has played its best basketball of the season, winning 10 of its last 11.
That includes Tuesday’s mini-upset of 4-seed Hillsborough in the Somerset County quarterfinals. The Warriors led wire-to-wire and got 20-point performances from Cam Brown and Cam Snowden. Before that, Franklin opened the tournament with a 25-point win over Bernards, led by Jake Novielli’s career-high 32 points.
Click below to hear Franklin head coach Tony Mento talk about his team’s hot streak and rematch with Rutgers Prep:
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