Gill St. Bernard’s is the 2025 Somerset County Tournament boys’ champion. (Photo : Mike Pavlichko)
Call the 2024-2025 high school basketball season the Season of Gill.
The last two years, it was Rutgers Prep sweeping the Somerset County Tournament on the boys’ and girls’ side. This year, Gill St. Bernard’s wields the broom.
A couple hours after the Knights’ girls took the title with a win over Hillsborough, the top-seeded boys held up their end of the bargain, coming from behind in the second half to beat third-seed and two-time defending champion Rutgers Prep, 52-46, at Montgomery High School in Skillman, in a game heard on Central Jersey Sports Radio.
And the hero was, perhaps, an unlikely one. The big names for Gill are Dorsett Mulcahy – who had 12 before fouling out with just under five minutes to play – and Kobe Closeil and Kieran Quinn and Stanley Njekwe.
But on this Saturday afternoon, it was 5′ 11″ freshman Connor Junker who played the hero. He finished with 15 points – the leading scorer – on four treys, two in the third and one in the fourth, then hit three of four free throws on a pair of late trips to the line that helped seal the deal.
Gill improved to 20-5 with the win, while Rutgers Prep dropped to 18-9. It was GSB’s third win this season over the Argonauts.
Gill couldn’t hit a bucket to save its life early in the third, as Prep took a three-point halftime lead and got it to as much as nine in the third quarter. But the Knights battled, and kept it close enough until they could make a move.
Junker provided that spark, and the rest of the team followed.
Not bad for a freshman. Now, what can he do for an encore?
Click below for postgame reaction from Gill St. Bernard’s freshman Connor Junker and head coach Mergin Sina, presented by Sportsplex at Metuchen:
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