Somerset County Tournament announces semifinals times for four games at Franklin High School this Saturday

With the Somerset County Tournament going back to its Saturday format, and putting the semifinals all at one neutral site, the SCIAA has announced the game assignments for this Saturday’s semifinals, which will be played at Franklin High School.

Officials waited until the completion of the quarterfinals to choose game times, in order to keep schools that might have both teams playing back-to-back as much as possible, rather than splitting up the day for fans.

The opening game will be at 11 am and feature the girls’ semifinal between second-seed Rutgers Prep and third-seed Hillsborough. The Argonauts won their first meeting this year on the road, 66-52, on January 9th, then won the rematch in Somerset, 76-65 back on the fourth of this month.

The second game is scheduled for 12:45 pm and will be the boys’ semifinal between third-seed Rutgers Prep and two-seed Montgomery. It’s a rematch of last year’s thrilling SCT final, which Prep won 64-61, though the Cougars went on to win the Central Jersey Group 4 title. Prep also won their lone regular season meeting this year, 63-59, back on January 30th.

Central Jersey Sports Radio will broadcast both games live, with Mike Pavlichko and Chris Tsakonas on the call. Click here to listen on game day.

Alec Crouthamel will have live coverage on Twitter (follow him here) as well as postgame stories and reaction, which can be found on the site after all four games that day.

The third game will be at 2:30, the girls’ semifinal between top-seed Gill St. Bernard’s and fourth-seed Franklin. While the Warriors are 7-13, two losses each came to Hillsborough and Gill, and one came against Rutgers Prep, which they’ll play in regular season action Tuesday. Franklin’s two losses to the Knights came 56-43 on January 7th and 70-45 on January 28th.

The final game will feature the boys’ semifinal between No. 1 seed Gill St. Bernard’s and four-seed Ridge at 4 pm. This could be a sleeper good game: the Knights are back after an off-year last season with major roster turnover, and Ridge is 17-4m their lone county loss coming to Montgomery, 55-52 in the middle of January. They beat Gill St. Bernard’s by nine last year, but haven’t played this season.