It’s only December, but there’s already chaos in the Skyland Delaware Division

When the final horn sounded in Hillsborough Thursday night, wrapping up the season opener for the Raiders and Gill St. Bernard’s, a long streak was snapped.

Hillsborough had not beaten Gill in almost a decade. Their last win came on March 1, 2014, a 53-52 win at Franklin High School in one of many dramatic finishes in the Somerset County Tournament Finals.

Mergin Sina was only a few years into his tenure as the boys’ coach, coming over from the girls’ side. Ian Progin was the head coach for the Raiders, and the game-winner came from James Smith, a jump shot from just inside the arc.

The historical significance is nice, but just one game into the season, we could have an interesting race shaping up in the Skyland Conference Delaware Division.

When the league reshuffled its divisions in the offseason, the Raiders moved up from the Raritan after a 19-8 season, along with Immaculata, while Bridgewater-Raritan and Hunterdon Central took their places, leaving the Delaware.

So now, Hillsborough has firmly inserted itself into the division title conversation.

It’s nobody’s title yet, there’s still a lot of basketball to be played. But the Delaware could be the most open it’s been in a while. 

SCT finalist Gill St. Bernard’s had another big roster turnover. Defending champs Rutgers Prep lost senior forward John Kelly to what could be a season-ending injury, per a report by Harry Frezza of MyCentralJersey.com. 

Hillsborough has made its dent, and oh, by the way, expect Franklin to make some noise, and Immaculata isn’t exactly chopped liver, either. 

All five teams are ranked in the Bellamy & Son Paving preseason Top Ten.

What’s even more intriguing is that – by some quirk of the schedule – the rematch between the league’s top two teams in recent years – Gill and Rutgers Prep – will be on Tuesday, February 6th, the night after the Somerset County Tournament seeding meeting, which is on Monday, the fifth.

That said, the worst Hillsborough could do is split with Gill – they rematch on January 11th up in the Hills – which means if they can also split with Prep, they’d have a good shot at the top seed in the SCT, right?

Again, that’s not even considering what Franklin and Immaculata could toss into the mix. The Warriors played Rutgers Prep tight on Friday night in their opener, coming within four in a 53-49 home loss.

To paraphrase a well-known member of the college basketball Twitterati: ”Anarchy? Nope. Just high school basketball.”

Hillsborough vs. Gill and Prep…

The Raiders had lost 15 straight games against Gill St. Bernards, including three meetings last year, the most recent of which came in the Somerset County Tournament Quarterfinals. And it wasn’t always pretty. Their average margin of defeat was 34.3 points. Gill had scored 80 or more points in five of these games, all since 2018, and beat Hillsborough 92-28 in Peapack in December 2019.

The 48 points scored by Gill Thursday night was their lowest output against Hillsborough since that 2014 SCT final, in which they scored 52.

Interestingly, in that 2013-14 season, Hillsborough dropped the first meeting between the teams, 57-45 at home, on January 18th, before winning the rematch by two, 48-46, which was the fewest points they’ve scored against them since 2009-10. Before that, they had not played each other at least dating back at least to 2005-06, the last season for which records are publicly available online, according to MaxPreps.

What about Rutgers Prep? Hillsborough has played them less often, but still has a nine-game skid against the Argonauts. But the last time they beat them, they swept two games from them in 2013-14, the same year they beat Gill to win the SCT. They won their own holiday tournament matchup against Prep, 48-37, and beat them again in the Somerset County Tournament quarterfinals, 62-36.

That year, Hillsborough went 4-1 against Gill and Rutgers Prep, and Thursday night was the Raiders’ first win against either since.

Few Public Losses:

Gill St. Bernard’s and Rutgers Prep haven’t lost many regular season games to Somerset County public schools in recent years. Gill’s loss Thursday night was its first regular season loss against a county opponent since 2019, when Watchung Hills beat them at home, 64-60.

Interestingly, the Warriors have been one of the few schools that seem to have their number. They also beat Gill, 65-54, in the Blue Division postseason “pod” semifinals in the COVID year of 2021, before going on to beat Rutgers Prep in the final, 51-49. They also beat them in January of 2019 in the regular season.

Overall, Gill has only lost to five games to Somerset County public schools since their last loss to Hillsborough, in the 2014 SCT finals.

As for Rutgers Prep, under Matt Bloom – whose first season was 2017-18 – they lost twice to Montgomery the following year in the regular season – 53-48 in their first meeting, 60-56 in their second – while also falling to Watchung Hills in that 2021 Blue Division “pod” final.

Future Meetings:

Here are the upcoming matchups between the three teams between now and the Somerset County Tournament seeding meeting on February 5th:

• Jan. 4: Rutgers Prep at Gill St. Bernards, 7 pm
• Jan. 9: Rutgers Prep at Hillsborough, 7 pm
• Jan. 11: Hillsborough at Gill St. Bernard’s, 7 pm
• Feb. 1: Hillsborough at Rutgers Prep, 12:30 pm