Tag: Holy Cross

by Mike Pavlichko

Gill’s defensive effort in Non-Public B Final win over Holy Cross was best in nearly three decades, matches program best win streak

If you ever want this reporter to go down a rabbit hole, ask him a question he doesn’t know the answer to.

Then again, sometimes you don’t even have to ask.

The Gill St. Bernard’s boys’ basketball team won its first-ever state title Thursday night when the Knights beat Holy Cross Prep of Delran 39-28 at Jersey Mike’s Arena at Rutgers University, and may have made a little history in the process besides picking up that first state championship trophy.

We looked back through the record books, and the 28 points allowed was the lowest scored in a state non-public final since at least 2011, when South B champion Cardinal McCarrick of South Amboy (now closed) lost to powerhouse and North B champ St. Anthony of Jersey City, 75-28 in the Non-Public B Final. No one else has allowed fewer points dating back to the 2000 championships.

That Friar squad finished that season 33-0, with a 61-49 win over Plainfield in the now-defunct Tournament of Champions final.

St. Anthony would go on to play its final season six years later, as the school closed in the summer of 2017 with a record 13 TOC wins. Plainfield, which also lost to the Friars in a rematch in 2012, will face Montgomery Saturday afternoon in the Group 4 finals, a rematch of a game they won 65-48. You can hear that game live at 2 pm, with pregame at 1:40 with Mike Pavlichko and Alec Crouthamel; click here to listen.

The game also was the lowest combined score of any non-public/parochial final in the last 25 seasons in which group finals were held. The emerging COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 ended up truncating the NJSIAA state tournament before the non-public finals could be held, and there were no state playoffs at all the following season, in 2021.)

Gill St. Bernard’s led Holy Cross 20-2 at the half, though the Lancers rallied to cut it to six points and a two-possession game, at one point in the fourth quarter, with the Knights pulling away at the end.

The combined 67 points beat out the second-lowest scoring game since 2020, a 38-35 win for Union Catholic over St. Peter’s Prep in the Non-Public A final in 2023, with a combined 73 points scored between the teams.

Scores that low are rare in games where a lot of offensive firepower tends to rule the day. In that time span, only seven of 50 non-public finals saw combined scores under 100, with three of them coming since COVID. In 2024’s Non-Public A final, Don Bosco Prep beat Paul VI 56-29, a combined score of 85, and the second fewest points allowed in a final since 2000.

For the “record”…

With the win, Gill St. Bernard’s finished the 2025-26 season on a 24-game win streak, tying what is believed to have been the longest win streak in school history, or at least its longest since becoming a member of the NJSIAA in 2004-05. The 2010-11 team finished 26-3, and won its last 24 games after a 2-2 start that includes losses to St. Anthony and St. Benedict’s.

While those Knights won the Somerset County Tournament championship – their first of ten, now tied for that mark with Bridgewater-Raritan after this season’s win – they bowed out in the sectional semifinals of the state tournament to St. Patrick of Elizabeth, 69-41.

by Mike Pavlichko

Historic Knight! Dominant defense by Dixon and Co. lead Gill St. Bernard’s boys to first-ever state title, 39-28 win over Holy Cross

A low-scoring game, with both teams feeling each other out, turned into a defensive clinic at Rutgers’ Jersey Mike’s Arena Thursday night.

No, it wasn’t a Steve Pikiell summer camp. It was the Non-Public Group B state title game.

And it was Gill St. Bernard’s – after leading just 6-2 after one quarter – ahead 20-2 at halftime.

While one might think it was over at that point in the Non-Public Group B final, the mantra for Holy Cross this post seaosn has been “We’re there, why not us?”

And with that, they got back into the game.

Tristan Ganges – who had the only points of the first half for the Lancers, quickly got the first six of the second half to cut into the lead. Holy Cross kept it around ten most of the second half, even getting it down to six in the fourth quarter.

But in the end, the Gill defense was just too strong, led primarily by Jahmal Dixon, always assigned the opposition’s best player. But Prosper Sonkoua also had a number of blocks – as he does – and even Connor Junker was cleaning up with loose floor rebounds. The Knights forced 16 turnovers, while only committing nine, and they outrebounded the Lancers 34 to 17.

In the end, Gill held on for a 39-28 win, earning the Knights’ (27-2) their first ever state championship.

Their season also ends with a 24-game win streak, matching a school record set in the 2010-11 season, head coach Mergin Sina’s first year leading the program after coaching the Gill girls for six years.

Junker, the sophomore who hit some big threes to lead Gill to the 2025 Somerset County Tournament title – a feat they reprised this year – finished with a game-high 13 points, while senior Dorsett Mulcahy had a dozen. Each also had a triple, while Dixon had one, too, and finished with seven.

Holy Cross finished its season at 27-4.

Click below for postgame reaction from Alec Crouthamel with Gill St. Bernard’s head coach Mergin Sina, as well as guards Connor Junker, Jahmal Dixon and Dorsett Mulcahy, as well as forward Prosper Sonkoua, presented by Sportsplex at Metuchen: