Starting out a season, there can be multiple goals. Win your division. Win your county. Win a state title.

Only ten teams will get to play in the last game of the year. And this year, the Montgomery boys’ basketball team was one of them.

But that wasn’t all. The Cougars checked off the box next to division champs, winning the Skyland Conference Raritan with a 10-0 record. And while they fell in the county semifinals to Rutgers Prep, they won a second straight Central Jersey Group 4 title – both coming at home – defeating West Windsor-Plainsboro North to claim another piece of hardware.

The state final? Hey, they went up against to No. 1-ranked team in New Jersey in Plainfield, which won the game and the Group 4 title, and should finish as the top team in the Garden State this year.

Not a bad resume.

And yet, even bringing key parts back from last year, who knew how it would play out?

Senior Christian Hill had to play a bigger role. Ethan Lin was coming off a horrific ankle injury late last year that kept him out of the entire postseason run, both in the county and state tournament; how would he rebound? Would Ukrainian import Bohdan Biekietov be as dominant with teams now aware of his skill. And how would his fellow countryman Kyryl Streltsov fit in with the bunch.

There’s no guarantee, even with a good core back, but Montgomery answered the bell time and time again. Their loss to Plainfield? It was their only public school loss this season, and only the second public school they’ve lost to in two years. The other? Lenape, which beat them last year in the regular season and again in the Group 4 semifinals.

But Montgomery checked that box, too, avenging those defeats with a dominant win over the Indians in this year’s Group 4 semis to get to Jersey Mike’s Arena this past Sunday.

Click below to hear Central Jersey Sports Radio’s Mike Pavlichko talk with Montgomery seniors Christian Hill, Braden Ginsberg, Bohdan Biekietov, and Kyryl Streltsov, junior Ethan Lin, and head coach Kris Grundy: