Defending champ Gill St. Bernard’s, Immaculata get set to tussle in Saturday’s final Somerset County Tournament semi

With four Somerset County Tournament semifinal games on tap at Franklin High School this Saturday, it’ll be defending champion and top-seed Gill St. Bernard’s taking on fifth-seed Immaculata for a trip to the championship game next week at Montgomery in the last of the hoops extravaganza’s four games.

There was little doubt who the top-seed would be. The Knights are 22-2, their only losses coming to St. Peter’s Prep and Linden. They’ve beaten everyone they’ve played in the Skyland Conference and Somerset County, and are ranked No. 3 in New Jersey (one of three Somerset schools in the top ten, with Rutgers Prep nine and Montgomery at ten).

They are the team everyone is chasing.

The Spartans (17-5) are one of those doing the chasing. And they have their share of quality wins in the county this year. They handed Bridgewater-Raritan its first loss of the season when the Panthers were 8-0, and – if you believe in the transitive property of sports – beat a Pingry team in the quarterfinals last week on the road, one which they had lost to earlier in the season, but also which had knocked off Rutgers Prep.

Gill and ‘Lata will face off at 4 pm, and Alec Crouthamel will have coverage on Twitter, with a game story and postgame reaction presented by Sportsplex at Metuchen later at cjsportsradio.com.

Make no doubt about it, it’s a huge challenge for Immaculata. Gill is stacked, and that’s a fact. Senior point guard Dorsett Mulcahy is averaging 19.8 points per game with 57 treys, second only to sophomore Connor Junker, who has 58 and is scoring nearly 13 per contest; he was the hero of last year’s county final, with a game-high 15 points and four treys in the win over Rutgers Prep.

They fly up and down the floor, run half-court sets well, and play strong defense, all the ingredients needed.

Likewise, Immaculata plays with particular intensity as well. Their challenge will be having the depth, physicality, length and speed to match. The focal point of the offense is Riley Gorman and Tyler Burns.

Gorman, who scored his 1,000th point in the first round against Bernards, is averaging a whopping 22 points per game, and has hit 71 treys on the year for a team that has hit 183. (Gill has 219, third best in the state.) Burns is averaging a cool 15 points per game, with another 42 triples.

Immaculata is seeking its first trip to the finals since 2009, when they were the top seed and beat Ridge for the trophy. Gill is looking for its second straight trip, but has made 13 of the last 14 title games going back to their very first appearance in 2010.