Tag: Aaron Feath

by Mike Pavlichko

Heady Montgomery point guard Ethan Lin repeats as CJSR Somerset County Boys’ Basketball Player of the Year

Basketball is a team sport, but without Ethan Lin, it’s highly likely Montgomery isn’t Central Jersey Group 4 champions three years running.

The smart, skilled, and unflappable point guard was the Central Jersey Sports Radio Somerset County Boys’ Basketball Player of the Year in 2024-25, and now he’s repeated the feat in 2025-26.

Last season, he was coming off a horiffic broken leg injury that truncated his sophomore season. He came back stronger than ever for his junior year, and that trajectory continued this season.

He’s the first back-to-back winner since another pretty good player did it in 2022, and 2023: Mikayla Blakes of Rutgers Prep. She’s doing alright these days, only the leading scorer in the nation in D1 women’s basketball, scoring 27 points per game for Vanderbilt, where she was just announced Thursday as a semifinalist for the Naismith Trophy, given to the Women’s College Basketball Player of the Year. A two-seed in the NCAA Tournament, they open play at home Saturday against High Point.

Lin reminds us – in the way he runs the game – of former East Brunswick standout point guard Amir Bell, who lead the Bears to a Central Jersey Group 4 title in 2013 as a junior. He then went on to be a standout at Princeton, where he was a thousand-point scorer, and most recently played in the German Bundesliga.

In the Group 4 semifinals against Cherry Hill East – a 30-point blowout win, 67-37 – Lin scored “just” nine points. And while many would look at that and say he was “held” to nine, he more realistically held himself to nine points. An unselfish player, he saw opportunities to get the ball to teammates Shree Mallavarpu and Connor Benedict, who scored a career-high 23 and a near-career high 28 points, respectively, as they dominated the game.

Or, as his father said to us afterward, “I think they game planned a lot for Ethan, but they forgot everyone else.”

That’s what makes Lin special, his feel for the game that not every player has.

Lin will be headed to play at the University of Pennsylvania next year. The Quakers of the Ivy League won the Ivy Madness Tournament title, and are in the NCAA Tournament as 15 seed, playing third-seed Illinois of the Big Ten Thursday evening at 9:25.

Click below to hear Central Jersey Sports Radio’s Mike Pavlichko talk with Central Jersey Sports Radio Boys’ Basketball two-time Player of the Year Ethan Lin:

Honorable Mentions:

  • Prosper Highlander, Gill St. Bernard’s: The senior from Cameroon – full name Prosper Highlander Sonkoua, who dropped the Highlander this year and went by Sonkoua – averaged 15.6 points and 72. rebounds a game this year, and emerging as a big prospect in the class of 2026, currently uncommited. He also hit 37 treys and had 33 blocks and 74 steals for the first-time Non-Public B state champs.
  • Dorsett Mulcahy, Gill St. Bernard’s: The senior point guard – who will head to Canisius next year – has been a rock for Mergin Sina’s Knights, even during a downturn a couple of years ago during a season where the roster was very much in flux. But this year, he upped his game and scored career-high 502 points, averaging 18.6 points per game, with a career-best 66 treys. The Knights finished second in the state – behind only Rutgers Prep – with 254 triples on the year.
  • Will Brunson, Rutgers Prep: Merely a sophomore, Brunson scored 22.2 points and 8.4 rebounds per game this season for a squad that reached the Somerset County Tournament finals. He also hit 53 treys, part of a 282-three barrage by the Argonauts that led the entire state of New Jersey
  • Riley Gorman, Immaculata: A senior, Gorman graduates with 1,238 points, cracking the 1k barrier in the Somerset County Tournament, in a win over Bernards. Averaging 22 points a game, he hit 91 threes, and finished his career with 168. And in 28 games played this season, he scored in double figures in all but one, a two-point effort against Westfield where he wasn’t feeling well and sat the second half.
  • Aaron Feath, Hillsborough: Also just a sophomore, he plays on a team with his older brother Derek, but not at all in his shadow. The kid hit big shots all year for a team that won 22 games and lost just eight, and scored at a team-best 18.5 point per game clip, while dishing out 103 assists.
  • Josh D’Ambrosio, Manville: Going 19-9 for a second straight year, D’Ambrosio – also an excellent football player – brought that physicality to the hardwood. He averaged 14.5 points per game, dished 100 assists for the second straight year, and hit 66 treys, giving him 219 in a four-year varsity career.

by Mike Pavlichko

In tale of two halves, Hillsborough boys pull away from Jackson Twp. in third quarter, clinches first sectional final berth in 11 years with 73-44 win in CJ4 semifinals

If you watched the first half of top-seed Hillsborough’s Central Jersey Group 4 semifinal against fifth-seed Jackson Township Tuesday night, then left and looked at the final score later, you might wonder what in the world happened.

Or think it was a typo.

Well, it wasn’t. In fact, for the Raiders, it was picture perfect and nearly flawless.

The first half saw seven ties, at two, six, eight, ten, 12, 14, then – after Jackson took a six point lead and threatened to pull away – at 28-28 late in the half. Hillsborough led by two at the break, 30-28.

In the second half, things just changed. The Raiders hit more shots, clamped down on defense, and – when Jackson did get to the basket – made them miss, and scooped up rebounds, then got in transition and scored. That all fueled a 19-6 third quarter for ‘Boro, and ultimately a 73-44 win heard live on Central Jersey Sports Radio.

Bigger than a win, it got the Raiders back to a sectional final for the first time since they pulled off a miraculous run in 2015, when they were 11-12 heading into the state tourney, but won the Central Jersey Group 4 title, stunning Freehold Township on the road, 66-58, with a team led by late head coach Ian Progin.

Sophomores Aaron Feath and Layne Pawlowski each had game-highs of 15 points in the win, with Feath coring ten after the break, and Pawlowski 13. Aaron also hit a buzzer-beating three at the end of the third to give his team a 49-34 advantage, it’s biggest of the game at that point. They led by 27 later, in the fourth.

Another tenth-grader, point guard Jack Toth, ran the offense like a well-oiled machine, and finished with 13, all in the first half.

The win puts top-seed Hillsborough (22-7) in the Central Jersey Group 4 title game Friday night at home against third-seed Montgomery (24-4), which beat second-seed Marlboro on the road Tuesday night, 61-49.

The Cougars are the two-time defending champions in the section, and beat Hillsborough twice this year: 53-37 on January 13th in the regular season, and 53-38 on February 7th in the Somerset County Tournament quarterfinals.

Click below for postgame reaction from Hillsborough sophomore Aaron Feath and head coach Tim Palek, presented by Sportsplex at Metuchen:

by Mike Pavlichko

Raiders take fourth straight, as Hillsborough tops visiting Ewing 57-44, behind 22-point day from Aaron Feath

Four ties, six lead changes.

That’s some good, back-and-forth basketball.

All of that came in the first half, though, as this Hillsborough boys’ basketball team clamped down on defense in the second half and got 22 points from sophomore Aaron Feath – ten of which came in the fourth quarter – en route to a 57-44 win over visiting Ewing Saturday afternoon.

The game followed a ceremony dedicating Ian Progin Court, named after the former longtime boys’ and girls’ basketball coach who passed away last spring after a battle with cancer.

Feath scored 12 in the first half, helping his team take the lead back just before halftime as the Raiders used a 9-2 run to take a 32-28 lead into the locker room.

After an 8-7 third quarter – in which ‘Boro held the Blue Devils without a field goal for nearly the first six minutes – the Raiders eventually built up a 12-point lead with under two minutes to go, helping to keep Ewing at bay.

Junior Kow Quagraine finished with 16 for Hillsborough, including two spectacular second half baskets, one where he made a nifty move on the baseline, and another where he took a no-look, behind the back bounce pass from just a foot away after a rebound for the finish.

The win was the fourth straight for the Raiders (11-4), who have no won eight of their last nine heading into Monday night’s Somerset County seeding meeting.

Though they’re just 2-2 in conference, those two losses came by a combined seven points, back-to-back in mid-December: a 51-49 loss at Gill St. Bernard’s, and a 62-57 loss to Franklin two nights later.

Ewing falls to 11-4 with the loss, but for the Raiders, it’s a big power point pickup of around 39 points (not factoring in OOWP) for the state playoffs.

Click below for postgame reaction from Central Jersey Sports Radio’s Mike Pavlichko with Hillsborough sophomore Aaron Feath and head coach Tim Palek, presented by Sportsplex at Metuchen: