Colonia junior Aiden Derkack throws down a dunk against St. Thomas Aquinas in the first half of the GMC Tournament semifinals at Monroe High School on February 19, 2025. (Photo: Mike Pavlichko)
All year long, Colonia has been the team to beat in the Greater Middlesex Conference.
And that will be the case one more time Friday night, as the top-seeded Patriots will defend their 2024 title when they take on second-seed Piscataway in another student-mentor battle between head coaches Jose Rodriguez of Colonia and Bob Turco of the Chiefs.
The two met in last year’s final – when Turco was at St. Thomas for the last of a six-year run there – and they’ll meet again this year. Colonia held up its end of the bargain with an 83-53 win in the second semifinal Wednesday night at Monroe High School, as heard on Central Jersey Sports Radio, presented by the George Street Playhouse in downtown New Brunswick. It’ll be their third title game appearance in the last four years.
But as both coaches will tell you, it’s not about them, it’s about the players. Plenty of time to talk about that later.
It wasn’t a rout from the start. The teams were tied at six before Colonia went on an 8-2 run to close the quarter, up 14-8. They built a 13-point lead at the half – not insurmountable – but Aquinas went cold from the floor in the second half, and the Patriots got the ball in the paint, drawing fouls, and sending Aiden Derkack alone to the foul line ten times for a total of 20 soul shots.
In the process, St. Thomas – which only had a limited number of players on the bench – had five guys foul out, and finished the last 1:37 of the game down two players, with Colonia essential having a 5-on-3 advantage for the remainder, most of which the Patriots essentially dribbled out.
Derkack – last year’s GMC finals MVP – finished with 28 points for Colonia (22-4), half from the charity stripe, and is scoring 26.3 points per game in the GMC Tournament, a shade above his season average. He had three monstrous second-quarter dunks. R.J. Wortman added 20, more than six points above his GMCT average through the first two games, and almost nine above his season average.
Aiden Ur finished with 17 for Aquinas (15-10), their only double-digit scorer.
Colonia and Piscataway (22-4) will square off at 8 pm Friday for the GMC Tournament title, following the 6 pm girls’ title tilt between top-seed and five-time defending champion St. Thomas Aquinas. Both games can be heard live on Central Jersey Sports Radio. And we’ll have full previews of both games with interviews, stats, notes and championship history out Friday morning at cjsportsradio.com.
The boys’ final will be the first meeting of two public schools in the GMC title game since 2006, when Colonia – the No. 2 seed that year – beat top-seed Metuchen.
Click below for postgame reaction presented by Sportsplex at Metuchen with Colonia junior Aiden Derkack and head coach Jose Rodriguez:
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