Tag: Anthony Melesurgo

by Mike Pavlichko

Bound Brook boys’ hoops coach Anthony Melesurgo notches 400th career win with 83-45 victory over Belvidere

It was 22 years ago when Bound Brook alum Anthony Melesurgo took the head coaching job at his alma mater. When he told people, some thought he was crazy.

More than two decades later, he’s reached yet another milestone in his coaching career: win No. 400.

It came Tuesday night, with an 83-45 Skyland Conference Mountain Division home victory over Belvidere.

That milestone is a tribute both to success, longevity and stability. The first two aren’t easy for any coach over a long period of time, but stability is even more rare these days. Many coaches have a few successful years, maybe at a small school, then make the jump up to somewhere even bigger.

Bound Brook head coach Anthony Melesurgo draws up a play against Belvidere on January 20, 2026 at Bound Brook, while his son, Jaxson, watches. (Photo credit: Leonardo Nunes Oliveira/submitted photo)

Melesurgo’s phone has rung a few times with job offers from schools with (sometimes) better players or (sometimes) more resources. But, he says, he’s a Bound Brook guy.

Floods be damned, this is home, and he’s not going anywhere. He’ll stay in Bound Brook as long as they want him.

Melesurgo talked with Central Jersey Sports Radio’s Mike Pavlichko about the program, the players, and his many influences over the years, from coaches and ADs to his parents, and even his family.

Click below to hear the interview:

Bound Brook is 10-5 on the season, 4-3 in the Skyland Mountain Division, good for third place, behind South Hunterdon (6-6, 5-1) and first-place Manville (8-6, 5-0).

The Crusaders are back in action Thursday night at 7 at The Brook against College Achieve Central (North Plainfield).

by Mike Pavlichko

After first win over rival Bound Brook in 20 years, Manville seeks season sweep at home Friday nite

Hard to believe that two similar-size schools don’t play each other every year in every sport, but that was the case for the past decade, as Manville and Bound Brook hadn’t played each other in basketball for a decade.

Maybe it had something to do with the Crusaders winning all 25 matchups between then from 2005 through 2015, by wide margins in the later years of that stretch.

That all changed on December 16th, when the two teams played in Bound Brook, and the visiting Mustangs came out with a 50-43 win. Prior to that, Manville’s last win in the series had come on January 20th, 2005.

Friday night, the two will meet for a second time in a Skyland Conference Mountain Division game you can hear live on Central Jersey Sports Radio. Tip-off is at 6 pm, pregame starts at 5:45 with Mike Pavlichko and Alec Crouthamel on the call. Click here to listen.

Manville will enter the game at 6-5 (4-0, first place in the Mountain Division), having a bit of an up-and-down season not entirely in their control. They’ve had some injuries, and the team even got the flu bug together at one point. Looking healthier now, they come in off a 67-61 win Tuesday over South Hunterdon.

Bound Brook has a better overall record at 8-3, but is 3-2 in the division, in third place, with South Hunterdon ahead of them at 3-1. They’re coming off a 58-46 win at Roselle Park Saturday, but have been otherwise idle this week.

A win for the Mustangs could solidify their chances at the division title, with a rematch in two weeks with South Hunterdon likely deciding it. A Crusader win would make things interesting; on its own, it would drop them into a first-place tie with the Eagles, both a game ahead of Bound Brook in the loss column.

Bound Brook is a much higher-scoring team, averaging nearly 70 points a game, with four players in double-figures, led by senior Dorian Roundtree. He’s averaging 20.6 points per game, and scored 28 in the December loss to Manville. Junior Titus Godwin is scoring at a 17.9 point per game clip, with seniior Jasahn Canary averaging a double-double: 11.3 points and 11.7 rebounds. Sophomore Cameron Newton is averaging 10 flat per game.

Manville, though scoring less, also is balanced. Senior Josh D’Ambrosio is averaging 12.2 points a game to lead the team, also No. 1 in threes (17), assists (43) and steals (22). The next four down all are scoring between 9.3 (sophomore Owen Kenyon) and 6.5 points per game.

The first meeting was a good one defensively for Manville, which held the Crusaders to what remains a season-low, just 43 points. Bound Brook is 0-3 when scoring fewer than 50 points in a game, with losses coming to Princeton and South Hunterdon.

Click below for preview interviews with both head coaches:

Manville head coach Bill Rooney with Mike Pavlichko
Bound Brook head coach Anthony Melesurgo
by Mike Pavlichko

Bound Brook off to good start, but Melesurgo and Crusaders are aiming higher when rival Somerville visits for Saturday afternoon tilt

To start a season 6-3 isn’t by any means terrible. But when one considers the success Bound Brook has had under head coach Anthony Melesurgo, their standards are set a bit higher.

Some losses have been tight, including Thursday night’s, a buzzer-beating one-point loss to Bernards, always a tough out.

But Melesurgo makes no excuses. And when rival Somerville comes to town Saturday afternoon for a 1:00 Skyland Conference Valley Division game – which you can hear on Central Jersey Sports Radio – he has an expectation: to win.

Mike Pavlichko and Justin Sontupe will call all the action. Tune in at 12:45 for pregame; click here to listen.

The big difference between the two teams right now, with Somerville 6-2 – a similar record – is that the Pioneers are 2-0 in the Valley Division, and the Crusaders are 0-2, looking for that first win.

The Brook returns Jackson Morrison, who cracked the 1,000-point milestone last year and is the team’s leading active scorer at 1,237 points, averaging over 26 per game and nearly eight boards per contest. New this year is junior forward Dorian Roundtree, averaging just under 17 a game and more than eight rebounds per.

One of the issues for the Crusaders has been taking care of the basketball, an issue that will need to be corrected Saturday against a good Pioneer club led by some ball-hawk football standouts from their Central Jersey Group 3 championship team this fall, including Brady Scheier – the team’s leading scorer – as well as Brendan Pacheco and Josh Rodriguez.

Click below to hear Bound Brook head coach Anthony Melesurgo talk about the Crusaders with Central Jersey Sports Radio’s Mike Pavlichko:

by Mike Pavlichko

Bound Brook looks to start life in Raritan Division on the right note with opener at Bridgewater

It’s a scene that plays out in high school athletic conferences all across New Jersey every off-season: play well for an extended period of time, move up a division.

Bound Brook’s boys’ basketball program under head coach Anthony Melesurgo has done just that.

Going back to January 2020 – pre COVID – the Crusaders had won 33 straight Valley Division games through the end of last season. This year finds them up in the Raritan Division.

For their success, Bound Brook – which has gone 22-5 in back-to-back seasons and won 20-plus games in nine of its last 12 campaigns – is rewarded with a tougher schedule, right off the bat even. The Crusaders visit Bridgewater-Raritan – which was 7-17 last year and now has moved down from the Delaware Division – Thursday night in their season opener, which you can hear on Central Jersey Sports Radio.

Mike Pavlichko and Justin Sontupe will open the season with pregame at 6:45, and tip-off at 7 pm. Click here to listen.

The Crusaders graduate two huge pieces from last season. Gone are Jordan Summers (25.5 ppg, 11.4 rpg), who’s now at Caldwell, and Jordan Robinson (12.9 ppg and 6.6 apg), but those were the only two seniors on the roster.

Back are senior Jarred Wooden and juniors Jeremiah Williams and Jackson Morrison, plus a host of newcomers.

Click below to listen to Bound Brook head coach Anthony Melesurgo talk about the opener and the upcoming season:

by Mike Pavlichko

Bound Brook’s run ends in sectional final, with loss at Rumson-Fair Haven

Seeking its first sectional title since 1979, the Bound Brook Crusaders ran into a really good Rumson team.

Top-seeded Rumson-Fair Haven won its third title in the last six years, getting off to a good start out of the gate en route to a 75-44 win in the Central Jersey Group 2 championship game.

Bound Brook fell behind early, and couldn’t recover from the deep hole of an 11-2 Bulldog run to start the game.

And though the Crusaders found their offensive rhythm in the second quarter, with Donovan Nwenyi scoring 9 points and Brook getting as close as eight, a 6-1 run to close the half by Rumson left Bound Brook down 32-19, and it was an uphill battle from there. A 9-0 run to start the second half spelled the end for the Crusaders, who finish the season with a 22-5 record.

It was the end of the line for a trio of Bound Brook seniors who were the faces of the program for a while: quick guard Quadir Harrell, glue guy Donovan Nwenyi, and solid Bryce Cobb, who missed all of last year due to a football injury. They wound up going to two sectional finals, and winning the one-off Skyland Conference Gold (middle) Pod in 2021, finishing 14-0, the first undefeated season in modern history for the Crusaders.

Click below for postgame reaction as Chris Tsakonas caught up with Bound Brook head coach Anthony Melesurgo:

by Mike Pavlichko

Bound Brook wins (nearly) at the buzzer, moves on to CJ2 title game Monday night down the Shore

It was a move head coach Anthony Melesurgo says he taught senior guard Quadir Harrell, on a play “Q” says he and senior forward Donovan Nwenyi have done for years, going back to their playground days.

And it helped second-seed Bound Brook escape by the hair of its chinny-chin-chin in the Central Jersey Group 2 semifinals, with a 50-49 victory over 6th-seed Raritan.

After the Rockets missed two free throws with 13.1 seconds to go, they scored on a backdoor feed into the paint to go up 49-48 with exactly eight seconds left.

With no timeouts, Donovan Newnyi took the inbounds pass along the far sideline going left to right, and found Harrell in the forecourt, who drove in from the right baseline, split two defenders, and got the bucket with 1.8 seconds to go, plus the foul, as he went hard to the floor and ended up in a seated position along the baseline padding, where he could get a wide angle view of the hometown fans losing their collective minds over the play.

Harrell then bricked the free throw off the front iron intentionally so as not to let Raritan get a good look on a full-court inbound after a make. Bound Brook got the rebounds, time expired, and the Crusader student section mobbed their classmates in uniform.

It was the last game for Harrell, Nwenyi, and fellow senior Bryce Cobb, and what a way to go out. But their season’s not over. The Crusaders (22-4) will travel to top-seed Rumson-Fair Haven (20-3)Monday night for a 6:30 pm tip of the Central Jersey Group 2 title game. The Bulldogs were 75-56 winners over 4th-seed Holmdel Friday night.

Click below for postgame reaction from Bound Brook’s CJ2 semifinal win:

Senior guard Quadir Harrell
Head coach Anthony Melesurgo
by Mike Pavlichko

Harrell, Summers team for key late shot to beat pesky Voorhees, extend NJ’s longest active winning streak to 23

Twenty-two and counting.

Not only are the wins for Bound Brook piling up quickly, but the attention being paid to them is growing.

That’s what happens when the team that used to have the longest active winning streak in New Jersey – which was Camden at 44 games – loses for the first time in the current decade, and you’re suddenly at the top of the pile.

But it took a full 48-minute from Bound Brook to beat Voorhees Thursday night, as a Quadir Harrell to Jordan Summers play that resulted in an old-fashioned three-point play broke a 40-all tie with under a minute to go, and gave the Crusaders – now 9-0 – a 44-40 victory.

Click below to listen to Bound Brook head coach Anthony Melesurgo talk about the win, and his team’s focus as they work through the winning streak:

Bound Brook went 14-0 last year and won the Skyland Conference middle pod championship. Combined with this year, they’ve won 23 straight. There are seven teams remaining in the state who are undefeated, but none have a streak as long as Bound Brook at the moment.

Two of those teams are in the Central Jersey Sports Radio coverage area: St. Thomas Aquinas (13-0) and Rutgers Prep (10-0). The others are Saddle River Day, Morris Catholic, Morristown, St. Augustine, and Governor Livingston.

Morristown is the only one of those teams playing tonight, according to NJ.com’s online schedule. The Colonials visit Morris Knolls Friday night at 7 pm.

by Mike Pavlichko

Harrell’s second half helps No. 6 Bound Brook edge out pesky Middlesex in Skyland-GMC finale

In a 14-game undefeated season, Middlesex gave Bound Brook one of its toughest fights of the year. The Blue Jays led after one quarter, but eventually, the Crusaders’ talent found a way to pull out a win.

Their 2022 meeting in the Skyland-GMC Coaches vs. Coronavirus Challenge at Bound Brook went very much in the same vein.

After Jeremiah William’s three-ball to open the game for the Brook, Blue Jay Zach Chippendale answered right back, and Middlesex went on a run to take an eight point lead, closing the first period with a 21-13 lead. But 6th-ranked Bound Brook chipped back, and by halftime, after four lead changes, took a 30-27 lead they would never relinquish.

Senior Quadir Harrell led the way with 11 points, all but two of which came after intermission, while game MVP Jeremiah Williams – who turned his ankle in the second half and missed the rest of the contest – had 13, including a pair of threes.

Bound Brook won its 18th straight dating back to last season, and improves to 4-0 on the year, while the Blue Jays dropped to 2-5, losing their fourth straight.

But they hung in until the final few minutes of the game, with the GMC’s leading scorer as of January 6th – Michael Salvatore – scoring 23 points, less than a point off his season average.

Click below to hear postgame reaction from Bound Brook’s win:

Senior guard Quadir Harrell
Bound Brook head coach Anthony Melesurgo

by Mike Pavlichko

Eight teams, four games, one day: Bound Brook hosts Skyland-GMC Coaches vs. Coronavirus showcase

Starting anything outside the confines of a pandemic is challenging enough, but doing so in the midst of one is hit or miss.

And so it went last year with what should have Bound Brook head coach Anthony Melesurgo’s inaugural Coaches vs. Coronavirus showcase, a fundraising event meant to raise money for those hit hard by the the COVID-19 pandemic.

This year? He again got plenty of interest, and the fates have smiled on the event, at least for the participants.

Though cases continue to surge in New Jersey – and across the U.S. – spurred by the omicron variant, all eight teams are healthy enough to play in today’s event, including the Crusaders, who are coming off a two-week layoff and only got back onto the practice floor as a group yesterday.

Scroll down for previews and notes on today’s games.

Click below to hear organizer and Bound Brook head coach Anthony Melesurgo talk about the event with Central Jersey Sports Radio’s Mike Pavlichko:

Skyland vs. GMC Coaches vs. Coronavirus Schedule
Saturday, January 8 – Bound Brook High School

Dunellen vs. South Hunterdon, 12 pm
South Plainfield vs. Pingry, 2 pm
Franklin vs. Timothy Christian, 4 pm*
Bound Brook vs. Middlesex*

*games broadcast live on Central Jersey Sports Radio; click here to listen

READ MORE:

by Mike Pavlichko

After two weeks off, Bound Brook gets back at it, will face Middlesex in Skyland-GMC challenge

Anthony Melesurgo, the Central Jersey Sports Radio Boys Basketball Coach of the Year in 2020, helped navigate his team last year through numerous hurdles. Few of them occurred on the court.

There was COVID. Then there was George Floyd and the Black Lives Matter movement.

This year, after just a two games, it was another COVID stoppage.

Bound Brook beat Warren Hills on the road just two days before Christmas, and hasn’t played since. They had a pair of games scheduled at home in the Crusader Classic, but Point Pleasant Beach had to cancel because of COVID, scrapping Brook’s opening game. Then, Bound Brook themselves had to cancel for the same reason the next day.

After two weeks off, they got back to practice today (Friday) and Saturday (tomorrow) will take on neighboring Middlesex in the Skyland-GMC Coaches vs. Coronavirus Challenge. It’s a rivalry game that should attract a good crowd.

You can hear the game on Central Jersey Sports Radio at 6 pm, the final game of the Skyland-GMC Coaches vs. Coronavirus Classic, right after after the Franklin-Timothy Christian game. Mike Pavlichko has all the play by play, with Timothy Christian coach Dennis McNulty providing color commentary. Click here to listen.

Click below to hear Bound Brook head coach Anthony Melesurgo talk about the early season, and Saturday’s game against Middlesex: