Last year’s final is this year’s semifinal, as Rutgers Prep and Montgomery rematch for trip to SCT championship game

If last year’s Somerset County Final and even this season’s regular season matchup are any indication, Saturday’s semifinal game in the Somerset County Tournament between Montgomery and Rutgers Prep very well may be the best game of the day.

It’s certain to be a doozy when the second-seeded Cougars and third-seeded Argonauts meet at 12:45 at Franklin High School. And you can hear it all on Central Jersey Sports Radio, with pregame immediately following the 11 am girls’ semifinal between Rutgers Prep and Hillsborough. Click here to listen.

The last two meetings have all come down to the wire. After a 62-48 Prep win on January 30th of last season, they won the county final by three, 64-61. This year’s regular season was a 63-59 Argonauts’ victory.

In both games, Montgomery trailed at the half. They were down 37-29 at the break in the finals last season, and 40-25 at the half this year. Both times the Cougars rallied in the second half, but fell short, so getting out of the gate hot would be a good start this time around.

The Cougars had a legitimate shot at the tournament’s top seed, but that went to Gill St. Bernard’s, and the difference may have been a late win over Hudson Catholic, which Monty fell too in their opening game of the season, by four.

They have only lost three times since, coming in at 18-4 and on a five game win streak, that includes a 67-58 victory over an always-pesky Pingry squad in the quarterfinals last Saturday, and an impressive 48-45 regular season win over Ridge Tuesday. The Red Devils are the fourth-seed in the county tournament, and play top-seed Gill St. Bernard’s in Saturday’s semifinal finale, scheduled for 4 pm.

Monty’s top scorer is Ethan Lin, a junior who played in this year’s regular season matchup with Prep, but missed last year’s final after breaking his ankle a few weeks earlier. He’s averaging 19.7 points a game, while senior Bohdan Biekietov – in his second season since coming over from the Ukraine – is averaging 11.9 points per game.

For Rutgers Prep, it’s senior Myles Parking leading the show at 15.9 points per game, with sophomore Andrew Kretkowski – who had a big final last year as a freshman against Montgomery, with 17 points and eight rebounds – second at 15.5 points per game, and tops on the team at nearly 5.6 boards per contest. Sophomore Jacob Canton, with a team-best 116 assists in 24 games, can distribute the ball.

This is sure to be some hard-nosed basketball, and worth the price of admission.

Click below to hear both head coaches talk about Saturday’s SCT semifinal between 2-seed Montgomery and 3-seed Rutgers Prep: