If you sat down to watch the Non-Public South B boys’ final Monday night after watching the girls’ final that preceded it, your might have expected to see Phil Connors and Punxatawney Phil.

Just like the Argonaut girls, who just couldn’t seem to sink a shot and had so many tries rim out, the same thing happened to the boys, just in a higher-scoring game, as third-seed Rutgers Prep lost to top-seed St. Rose of Belmar, 86-55 at Jackson Liberty High School, as heard on Central Jersey Sports Radio.

Prep never led, and was in the game at the half, down just by ten, 39-29.

But the third quarter proved disastrous. Rutgers Prep didn’t score for almost the first seven minutes of the second half, and by that point, the Purple Roses had gone on a 23-0 run to take a 63-29 lead before Nicholas Nsenkryie hit a basket with 1:05 to go in the period.

St. Rose was hitting everything, and Rutgers Prep wasn’t. And that was that.

Major D1 prospect Jayden Hodge, just a junior, finished with 21 for St. Rose, but the X-factor in the game was Evan Romano. The 6′ 3″ senior co-captain scored 25 points in just three quarters of play – he was already out by the fourth – but scored 17 in the third quarter, most on that 23-0 run.

Rutgers Prep also was hampered by being down two “big” players: 6′ 11″ Logan Franz has been out since February 19th, and 6′ 7″ Andrew Kretkowski – a big man who can step out and hit threes, too – missed the Holy Cross game in the semis, as well as Monday night’s final.

That certainly would have helped in one area Prep struggled – on the offensive glass.

St. Rose (23-7) will move on to play in the Non-Public B state final at Rutgers at 3 pm Friday against Roselle Catholic, which staved off a game run by top-seed Gill St. Bernard’s in the final minute of the North B final Monday night at JFK Paterson.

Rutgers Prep’s season ends at 20-10.

Click below for postgame reaction from St. Rose senior Evan Romano, presented by Sportsplex at Metuchen: