Tag: boys’ basketball

by Mike Pavlichko

Immaculata looks for stronger start when Spartans travel to Pingry Saturday for SCT quarterfinal matchup

Despite a disastrous first quarter where Immaculata trailed Pingry at home 28-10 at the end of it, the Spartans fought back and were able to cut their deficit to one measly point in the fourth the last time these two teams met, almost a month ago. The Big Blue held on, though, picking up a 64-59 win.

So when the fifth-seeded Spartans (15-5) visit fourth-seed Pingry (11-6) Saturday afternoon in the Somerset County Tournament quarterfinals, getting out to a good start will be Job No. 1.

A trip to the semifinals is on the line, and you can hear it on Central Jersey Sports Radio beginning with pregame at 12:45, and tip-off at 1:00 from the Pingry School in Basking Ridge; click here to listen.

This is the highest seed Pingry has ever earned in the Somerset County Tournament, getting a double-by for the very first time, according to head coach Jason Murdock, whose team has a signature win this season over 2025 SCT and Non-Public South B finalist Rutgers Prep.

That was a 64-58 win that reverberated far and wide, knocking off a team ranked in the state’s Top Ten at the time. Dylan Cowell scored 29 in the win, and three players finished with double-doubles in an inspired effort. Cowell grabbed 14 rebounds, while Neel Sapidi scored 15 and grabbed ten, while Ryan Rust went for 12 and 14.

Immaculata has played solid basketball for much of the year, with no real clunker losses. Four of the Spartans’ five losses have come to the top four seeds in the tourney – Gill St. Bernard’s, Rutgers Prep, Montgomery and Pingry, with the other to the team right behind them, sixth-seed Hillsborough. And they have a signature win over Bridgewater-Raritan, a 64-57 victory on January 8th that was the Panthers’ first of the season after winning their first ten.

Click below to hear preview interviews with both head coaches and Central Jersey Sports Radio’s Mike Pavlichko:

Pingry head coach Jason Murdock
Immaculata head coach Ryan McKeever
by Mike Pavlichko

In final few weeks of the regular season, most GMC, Skyland boys’ division titles are settled

The Somerset County Tournament was seeded Monday night, and the Greater Middlesex Conference will take its turn one week from today. But there are still division titles up for grabs in both leagues.

So, who already has hardware, and who’s still fighting for a banner? Here’s a look at the GMC and Skyland Conference division races as we hurtle toward the postseason.

GREATER MIDDLESEX CONFERENCE

Red American Division: Despite taking its first loss on Tuesday, falling to South Plainfield in a Red National division crossover, St. Joseph-Metuchen already has the title in the bag, sitting at 7-0, with their last division game coming up next Friday – after the seeding meeting – against St. Thomas Aquinas. Division winners no longer get guaranteed top 8 seeds, so finishing up by the meeting shouldn’t matter here. Teams still must come out of each division in the order of the standings, however.

Red National Division: East Brunswick is the champ, sweeping to an 8-0 record with two wins each over South Plainfield, Sayreville, Woodbridge and Monroe.

White American Division: Perth Amboy clinched the division title last Saturday with a 74-57 win over JP Stevens, but finished off a 12-game sweep of the division on Wednesday, with a win over second-place South Brunswick.

White National Division: Metuchen is the champ, with the Bulldogs sweeping a pair of games apiece from Middlesex, Spotswood, Carteret and JFK.

Blue American Division: Piscataway Magnet and South Amboy – both 9-1 in the division – are the co-champs, as they’ve finished their division slate, and split with each other. They played back-to-back on January 14th and 16th, with the Raiders winning the opener on the road, 62-55, while the Governors returned the favor in Piscataway two nights later, with a 52-51 win. Whoever comes out first from the Blue American at the seeding meeting will be determined by the committee, which breaks all ties within a division before the seeding begins.

Blue National Division: Perth Amboy Magnet are the champs here, at 7-0 with one more game to play, but second-place East Brunswick Magnet in second at 4-4. They’ll wrap up the division slate next Thursday – the night before seeding meeting – at home against the Tigers.

SKYLAND CONFERENCE

Delaware Division: Things are a little different in the Skyland this year. Division teams only play once through the group, with crossovers against the other corresponding division (i.e., the larger schools in the Delaware and Raritan crossover, while the smaller schools do the same between the Mountain and Valley Divisions). Gill St. Bernard’s won the title here, going 5-0 against Rutgers Prep, Montgomery, Hillsborough, Ridge and Phillipsburg. However, Gill and Prep will face each other a second time – of their own accord – next Thursday night.

Raritan Division: This one is far from settled. Pingry is 3-0 and in first place, a game ahead of Immaculata and Bridgewater-Raritan, both of whom are 4-1. The Big Blue beat Immaculata earlier this year, but plays Bridgewater-Raritan February 10th. Things could get really interesting if they drop that game, and a division matchup with fourth-place Franklin (2-2) next Wednesday. Two losses would leave them 3-2, and then it would be between the Spartans and Panthers, with the Immaculata winning it on a tiebreaker.

Mountain Division: Manville is 7-0 and still has one division game left against South Hunterdon – who they beat by six at home January 13th – but the Eagles are 5-2 and can’t catch them. That makes Manville division champs for the first time in 39 years, running the table (so far) against South, Bound Brook, Belvidere and College Achieve Central.

Valley Division: This is the only division without a Somerset County school in the mix, as third-place Somerville – 12-6 overall – is is 4-4 in the division. Warren Hills (5-0) leads the pack but still has five division games left.; the Blue Streaks are two games ahead of Delaware Valley (7-2).

by Mike Pavlichko

Partying like it’s 1993, Perth Amboy wins tenth straight, tops JP Stevens to clinch GMC White American Division

The season began like gangbusters for Perth Amboy. Four straight wins gave them their best start in a long time.

Then, they dropped three of four around the holidays, a situation that could make any coach reconsider their chosen profession.

But not Donnie Reid, and not this edition of Panther Basketball.

How did they respond? Well, they’ve won ten straight since, including Saturday’s 73-57 victory over at JP Stevens that clinched the Greater Middlesex Conference White American Division title with an 11-0 division mark and one game left against second-place South Brunswick (8-3 in division) this Tuesday.

It’s their first division crown since 1993, when they went 12-0 in the GMC Red and earned the top seed in the GMC Tournament.

While there are no more guaranteed seeds in the GMCT – the four division winners used to get one of the top eight seeds regardless of overall record – The Panthers will be a tough out wherever they are.

Yandel Susana – the No. 3 scorer last year – is back and leading the team at 18.8 points per game. He had 25 Saturday afternoon, and Reid says “when he gets going, he can shoot lights out.” But he’s far from the only one contributing. It’s a true team effort.

There’s Jeremy Garcia-Peralta, who Reid says is “always on the boards, and does the little things for us.” Kasey Abreu “started on fire,” Reid says, before he hit a little lull, but notes he’s been consistent with other things. “He didn’t change what we needed him to do,” Reid says.

And the list goes on: Point guard Justin Ramos “controls the game,” Reid says. Then there’s Ricardo “Ricky” Reyes, a senior transfer from Woodbridge who had to sit early in the season by NJSIAA rule. But when he took the floor, Reid says the Panthers “got a little extra pep in our step.” He’s now leading the county in assists.

“That’s big for us,” Reid says, “having two point guards out there.”

For Reid himself, he almost didn’t get tho this point. After head coaching stops at the Academy of Urban Leadership in the Bay City as well as Perth Amboy Magnet, he applied for the open Perth Amboy High School job a few years ago and figured if he didn’t get it, maybe he’d move on to something else.

Good thing he got it. The team went from 8-13 his first season to 15-12 last year, and now they’ve matched that total in 2025-26, but have just three losses.

And after a couple tough defeats in the Butch Kowal Holiday Tournament in Rahway between Christmas and New Years, the Panthers opened the 2026 part of the schedule in fine form: on the third day of the New Year, they picked up a home win over Edison, 73-52, that gave Reid his 100th career coaching win.

They haven’t lost since.

The perseverance probably came in large part from his scholastic playing days, across the bridge in South Amboy, at the now-shuttered Cardinal McCarrick High School.

With the Eagles, coached by Joe Lewis, Reid won a Non-Public South B title in 2005, as well as in 2003, when he was a sophomore. McCarrick won the GMC Tournament title that year, too, beating St. Joseph-Metuchen with players like Vinny Rosario and Tourney MVP Mika Wilson.

Reid looks back fondly on those days. Some day, the current Panthers may be thinking the same thing about 2026 and Coach Reid.

Click below to hear Perth Amboy coach Donnie Reid talk about the Panthers’ season, his time at Cardinal McCarrick, and the influence of his former coach, Joe Lewis, with Central Jersey Sports Radio’s Mike Pavlichko:

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:

by Mike Pavlichko

Hillsborough renames court after late boys’ and girls’ basketball coach Ian Progin

The passing of Ian Progin last May second at the age of 47 did not come as a stunner in the immediate moment, as many of his close friends knew his cancer – first diagnosed in 2011 – had returned. He was living in hospice in his final days.

Nonetheless, it was indeed a stunner in the grand scheme of things. Here was a man who dedicated his life to his family, friends and his alma mater, who continued coaching not only high school basketball in Hillsborough, but also his son’s youth league, even while undergoing treatments.

Ian Progin seemed like he could beat anything. And for years, he did.

The longtime coach – who mentored the boys’ basketball team at Hillsborough for 12 years, and the girls for another four – was honored by the school Saturday afternoon, during a court naming ceremony in his honor between a girls’/boys’ doubleheader.

The ceremony was sandwiched in between a sweep Saturday for the Raiders, coming after the girls’ 72-33 win over Union. (Current head coach Courtney Tierney, now in her fifth season, was Progin’s successor.) And it preceded the boys’ 57-44 victory over Ewing, their fourth straight W.

PA announcer and head baseball coach Matt Mosko presided over the ceremony, after which a banner along the baseline padding was removed unveiling the words “IAN PROGIN COURT” in all caps, with Ian’s wife, Courtney, and son, Jeffery, sitting off to the left.

Progin was a 1996 graduate of Hillsborough High School, played college basketball at Widener, and later transferred to Rutgers as a walk-on. After his eligibility ran out, he joined the Sports department of campus radio station, WRSU 88.7 FM, where he was an analyst on basketball broadcasts. He graduated with a degree in Journalism and Mass Media.

He went back to Rutgers to become a teacher, and earned his Master’s from Rider, then came back to Hillsborough as a guidance counselor, also becoming the school’s head boys’ basketball coach. In his dozen seasons, the big highlights included an upset of top-seed Gill St. Bernard’s to win the 2014 Somerset County Tournament, then an amazing run to the Central Jersey Group 4 title in 2015.

Just one year later, he came back and coached the girls’ basketball team from 2016 to 2020, while also coaching gymnastics for three seasons.

Click below for video from Saturday’s ceremony, and scroll down further for additional links to coverage of Progin’s passing, including our original story and a tribute including fellow coaches and former players:

Former Hillsborough coach, Rutgers basketball walk-on Ian Progin passes away at age 47

More tributes pouring in for Hillsborough alum and former basketball coach Ian Progin; plus a one-on-one with Montgomery’s Kris Grundy, and a postgame chat after Raiders’ 2015 CJ4 title

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

Spotswood pulls away in second half for 78-43 win over Highland Park behind VanLeeuwen’s 21

Last season, Spotswood head coach Steve Mate called newcomer Tyler VanLeeuwen a freshman sensation.

“I see big things for him,” said veteran head coach Steve Mate.

His sophomore year? He’s even better, and what’s best is he knows there’s still a lot of room for improvement.

VanLeeuwen scored 21 points Tuesday night – ten above his average and five shy of a career high he just set Saturday against JFK – in a 78-43 road win over Highland Park in a GMC crossover game heard live on Central Jersey Sports Radio.

And he did it almost entirely on two-point field goals, with one three, and a trio of foul shots.

The game was tight early, with two lead changes in the first half, and Highland Park had a three-point lead as they bombed away from three. Evangelinos Kambitsis had 12 first-half points, all from downtown, and of their eight first-half field goals, seven were from beyond the arc, many from two or more feet behind the line.

But Spotswood took an 18 point lead into halftime, 48-30, and never looked back, clamping down on defense in the second half. The Owls only had three triples the rest of the way as the Chargers extended their defense.

Se’mir Tolbert-Brimage finished with 18 and Leo Carone added 15, including three treys. Spotswood (8-6) now has won four straight, their best stretch of the year as they jockey for position in the Central Jersey Group 2 power point standings.

Kambitsis was high scorer for the Owls (4-12) with 16, while Cooper Ballentine added 11, chipping in three treys himself.

While the two former GMC Blue Division rivals hadn’t played in four years, it was the Chargers’ eleventh straight win against Highland Park, dating back to January of 2012.

The victory also was the 494th of Steve Mate’s 35-year coaching career. He was 34-49 in four years at Verona before landing in Spotswood for the 1995-96 season, amassing a 460-335 record. The Dean of GMC coaches is now 494-384 overall.

Click below for postgame reaction from Central Jersey Sports Radio’s Mike Pavlichko with head coach Steve Mate and sophomore Tyler VanLeeuwen, presented by Sportsplex at Metuchen!

by Mike Pavlichko

PHOTO GALLERY: No. 7 Immaculata vs. No. 7 Somerville (January 17, 2025)

The seventh-ranked Immaculata Spartans got 26 points – and six threes – from senior Riley Gorman to win their eleventh straight game over Somerville, defeating the Pioneers 81-53 on Saturday, January 17, 2026.

Click here to read the game story, complete with postgame reaction from Riley Gorman and head coach Ryan McKeever, presented by Sportsplex at Metuchen!

Here’s a photo gallery from Central Jersey Sports Radio’s coverage of the game:

  • Immaculata's student section rests up before a big in-town rivalry game at home against Somerville on January 17, 2026. (Photo: Mike Pavlichko)
by Mike Pavlichko

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:

by Mike Pavlichko

INSTANT REPLAY – BOYS: Manville 58, Bound Brook 41

Manville used a 21-0 run to erase an eight-point third-quarter deficit, pulling away in the fourth to beat visiting Bound Brook 58-41 in a Skyland Conference Mountain Division game, behind 15 points from Jimmy Cuadra and 12 from Josh D’Ambrosio.

Click below to listen to Mike Pavlichko And Alec Crouthamel call all the play-by-play from Manville High School on January 16, 2026.