No. 7 Immaculata reigns as Spartans rain 3s down on No. 10 Somerville for 83-51 victory, 11th straight against Pioneers

Twice this week – on Monday against Vernon and Tuesday against Hunterdon Central – No. 7 Immaculata dropped eleven threes in a game. What would be the odds they’d do it again?

Pretty good, as it turns out.

The seventh-ranked Spartans hit eleven times from downtown Saturday afternoon, en route to an 83-51 home win over No. 10 Somerville in the annual Mayor’s Trophy game.

And forget the kids and their “6-7,” there must be something about the No. 11. Because that’s how many in a row Immaculata has won against their in-town rivals, dating back to 2017. The Pioneers’ last ween against the Spartans came in February 2016.

Then again, there might also be something about the number ten. That’s the jersey number of senior Riley Gorman, who hit six times from beyond the arc Saturday, three times in the first quarter as part of two runs that had Somerville chasing them all afternoon.

After the Pioneers got the first bucket from James Hampton, Immaculata went on an 11-0 run to take an 11-2 lead, then after a three made it 11-5, they strung nine straight points together to make it 20-5 with 3:38 left in the first period. Somerville never got it to single digits the rest of the game.

And they played fairly even after that. Immaculata (10-2) led by 15 after those two runs, and was up 17 at the half. But the third quarter also belonged to Immaculata, which led 73-43 after three, and the rest was history. Tyler Burns finished with 18 for ‘Lata, while Bruce Higgins chipped in 17.

Somerville (10-4) was led by Messiah Bradley with 16 – including a pair of treys – while James Hapton added 13 and Brian Palko 12.

Click below for postgame reaction from Central Jersey Sports Radio’s Mike Pavlichko with Immaculata senior Riley Gorman and head coach Ryan McKeever, presented by Sportsplex at Metuchen: