Central 4 champion Franklin couldn’t find its shot, and fell to South 4 champion Lenape 54-35 in the state Group 4 semifinals. The Warriors were led by Nola Bright, who narrowly missed a double-double with ten points and nine rebounds.
Click below to listen to Mike Pavlichko and Alec Crouthamel call all the play-by-play from Deptford High School on March 10, 2026.
In baseball, sometimes you can get a good bat on the ball, but if you hit it right to a fielder, it’s an out. Sometimes you just can’t “hit it where they ain’t,” as they say.
In basketball, sometimes the shots don’t fall.
And that’s what happened to the Franklin girls’ basketball team Tuesday night in Deptford, where the Central Jersey Group 4 champions fell to South champ Lenape, 54-35, in the group semis, as heard live on Central Jersey Sports Radio.
It certainly wasn’t for a lack of trying. Drives to the basket, mid-range jumpers, threes; none seemed to fall for Franklin.
They only trailed 12-6 after one quarter, and in an even lower scoring second quarter, cut it to 20-18 at the half.
But Lenape’s star, senior El-Anita Joe-Samuel, turned out to be the biggest factor in the game. Even when the Warriors switched defenses, and gave the Indians some different looks, all she did was score. Joe-Samuel finished with 39 points, one shy of a career high the junior set in mid-February.
For Franklin, the Warriors’ very successful season comes to a close at 22-9. They had signature wins at Hillsborough in the regular season, over the defending CJ4 champs in the sectional finals, and even beat Gill St. Bernard’s in the Somerset County Tournament semifinals to get to the championship for the first time since 2019.
And with a good core back – including top scorer Aleah Sunkins, junior Alivia Stewart, and sophomores Jamila McRiney and Nola Bright, all part of the starting five – the future appears to have just begun for this group.
Lenape will go on to face Westfield, a 56-52 winner over West Orange in the other semifinal, in the state Group 4 title game at noon Saturday at Rutgers.
Click below for postgame reaction from Central Jersey Sports Radio’s Alec Crouthamel with Franklin head coach Jimmy Kreie, presented by Sportsplex at Metuchen:
While Tuesday’s Group 4 girls’ state semifinal game will officially be at a neutral site, Deptford High School is a lot closer to Lenape High School than it is to Franklin. So this one will be more like a “road” game for the Warriors than the Indians.
But as far as Franklin is concerned, who cares?
Just look at two of their key wins this season.
On January sixth, they pulled off a huge win at Hillsborough, 72-44, against the same team they rallied against to beat at home last Thursday in the Central Jersey Group 4 final.
Nine days later, they beat Westfield, 46-41, also on the road. The Blue Devils are also in the Group 4 semis, the North 2 champs facing North 1 winner West Orange, the team Hillsborough beat in last year’s state final.
So what’s one more quasi-road game?
Tuesday night at 7:00, Central Jersey Group 4 champ Franklin (22-8) will play South Jersey Group 4 winner Lenape (27-4) for a trip to the state finals which will be Saturday at Rutgers University’s Jersey Mike’s Arena. The game can be heard live on Central Jersey Sports Radio, with pregame at 6:45, following our live broadcast of the boys semi between Montgomery and Cherry Hill East. Both games can be heard live at this link.
Lenape has won eleven straight coming in, including a 59-40 win over third-seed Howell in the South 4 final last Friday. Junior El-Anita Jo-Samuel led all scorers with 20 points in that game, and is averaging 28.5 points per game in the state tournament, more than four above her average. She even dropped 40 on Moorestown in the Burlington County Tournament Final.
However, she was held to just two first-half points against Howell.
But Franklin head coach Jimmy Kreie believes Lenape has played better games than that one, and he prefers to look at some of their other wins – like perhaps the Moorestown contest – to game plan for the Indians. He wants to figure it out based on their best games.
But Franklin has some outstanding players, too. And against Hillsborough last Thursday, it was the whole cast of characters.
The team’s top scorer – junior Aleah Sunkins, averaging 18.4 per game – was not the high scorer in that game, but that’s okay. After all, she had 11 points and 14 rebounds for a double-double – a regular feat for Sunkins – while Jamila McRiney and Kayla Duncan were noted by Kreie as really helping to fuel the comeback with their stellar defensive efforts.
Click below to hear Franklin coach Jimmy Kreie talk about the Warriors’ journey to the Group 4 semifinals, and the matchup against Lenape, with Central Jersey Sports Radio’s Mike Pavlichko:
Stellar first-half defense that propelled Central Group 4 champion Montgomery to a 39-5 halftime lead gave the Cougars a 62-32 win over South 4 champ Lenape in the state Group 4 semifinals. The win sends Monty to its first-ever state championship game, where they will play Plainfield in the Group 4 finals.
Click below to listen to all the action as called by Alec Crouthamel live on Central Jersey Sports Radio from Central Regional High School in Bayville on March 12, 2025.
After winning its four sectional tournament games by an average of 31 points, the logical thought would be that Montgomery Boys Basketball wouldn’t be able to keep up such a torrid pace in the state tournament, right? Right??
Wrong.
The Cougars (25-5) advanced to their first state title appearance in program history, disposing of Lenape 62-32 at Central Regional High School in the Group 4 semifinals.
The Indians (20-10) opened the game with a bucket, but from then on it was all Montgomery. The Cougars allowed just a single field goal for the rest of the first half, leading 25-3 after the first quarter and 39-5 at halftime.
An efficient shooting performance and timely defensive stops – timely meaning all of the time – helped springboard Montgomery.
Christian Hill scored a game-high 18 points – 15 coming in the first half – with four three-pointers. Ethan Lin scored 11 points with a buzzer-beating, off-balance three to end the first quarter. Bohdan Biekietov was the lone other Cougar in double figures, also with 11 points.
From the beginning, Lenape could not get anything going at the rim with Biekietov and fellow Ukranian forward Kyryl Streltsov blocking multiple shots and overall contesting with verticality. Nolan Barnes opened the game with a basket before Montgomery went on a 19-1 run to end the first quarter.
By midway through the third quarter – and maybe even earlier, depending on who you ask – the game was already in hand, though the Indians had a better third quarter with 12 points as leading scorer Mehki Carter finally got in his offensive groove. By that point, however, the damage had been done.
Montgomery’s win streak has now reached seven straight games, with all but one coming by at least 19 points.
The Cougars will move on to their first Group 4 finals appearance in team history, where they will match up against North 2 Group 4 champion Plainfield, who defeated Ridgewood 60-51 in Elizabeth on Wednesday.
The game will be played at Jersey Mike’s Arena on the campus of Rutgers University, tipping off at 6:00 pm.
Montgomery’s appearance in the state finals is the first for a boys’ public program from Somerset County since Franklin won Group 3 in 2003 – 22 years ago – and went to the now-defunct Tournament of Champions.Â
Click below for postgame reaction from Alec Crouthamel with Montgomery head coach Kris Grundy and guard Christian Hill, presented by Sportsplex at Metuchen:
Montgomery got 14 points from senior Steve Donahue and 10 points from junior Bohdan Biekietov in a 57-43 loss to Lenape in the Group 3 semifinals of the NJSIAA state tournament.
Click below to listen to Mike Pavlichko call all the play-by-play live from Central Regional High School in Bayville, NJ, on March 5, 2024, as heard on Central Jersey Sports Radio.
One of the greatest seasons in Montgomery history came to an end down at the Jersey Shore Wednesday afternoon.
In its second meeting with Lenape this season – this time in the Group 4 semifinals – the Cougars fell to the Indians 57-43, as heard live on Central Jersey Sports Radio.
The game was in the balance the entire afternoon, almost. Nobody had led by more than seven points until the fourth quarter, which started tied up at 33-all.
The signs of trouble really came in the third quarter, though, when the Indians were able to keep Steve Donahue out of the scoring column. While Miggy Aguilar and Jack Fromelt each hit threes, and Bohdan Biekietov had four points, it was a sign the Cougars could be in trouble.
Then again, Donahue hit a three early in the fourth to give Monty some hope it could pull away for the win. But Lenape took its last lead early in the quarter, and turnover after defensive stop, make after make on the other end, they were the ones to pull away.
Donahue finished with 13 points to lead the Cougars in what turned out to be the final scholastic game for the Franklin & Marshall-bound senior. Biekietov had ten, while Fromelt scored nine, all from beyond the arc.
Montgomery’s season ends at 25-4, while Lenape – led by Merrimack-bound Tye Dorsett with 18 – is now 28-3 and will face the winner of tonight’s 7:00 North semifinal between Elizabeth and Ridgewood 4:30 Saturday afternoon at Rutgers University’s Jersey Mike’s Arena.
Click below for postgame reaction with Montgomery head coach Kris Grundy, presented by Sportsplex at Metuchen:
With its second NJSIAA state sectional title plaque firmly planted in its trophy case, the Montgomery boys’ basketball team isn’t done.
They’ve got two now, from titles this season and in 2010, and have only been to three sectional finals, but they’ve never been to a state championship.
A trip there, however, is on the line Tuesday afternoon down at the Jersey Shore when the Central 4 champion Cougars (25-3) battle South 4 champion Lenape (27-3) out of Medford Lakes at Central Regional High School in Bayville. That game tips off at 4:30 pm, and Central Jersey Sports Radio will be there will live coverage. Tune in at 4:10 for the pregame with Mike Pavlichko. Click here to listen.
Though these two teams have only hooked up four times going back to 2013, one of those matchups came earlier this year. Back on January 6th, the Indians beat Montgomery, 56-50, in their own Coaches vs. Cancer Shootout.
In that game, Steve Donahue scored 28 points – more than half his team’s total – and the Cougars had no one else in double figures. It’s one of just three losses in the Montgomery ledger this year to two teams; they lost twice to Rutgers Prep, once in the regular season, and a second time in an instant classic Somerset County Tournament final on their “neutral court” home floor.
Only once since then – in a February 3rd home win over Hillsborough – has Monty not had at least two players in double figures. Often there have been three of four.
And the most common combo of double-figure scoring has been Donahue and Bohdan Biekietov, the second of whom has been just about a lock for a double-double these last few weeks, since a season-ending ankle injury to guard Ethan Lin.
That’s been the key to the Cougars’ success of late, and it will need to continue if their playoff run is to do the same.
Lenape, meanwhile, has won 19 straight, its last loss coming to Camden Eastside on January 11th.
Click below to hear both head coaches talk about Tuesday’s matchup in the Group 4 semifinals:
Edison won its third state sectional title in as many tries as the 6th-seeded Eagles beat top-seed Lenape in the Central Jersey Group 5 title game on November 11, 2022 at Richard M. Driscoll Field in Medford. Edison took a 20-0 lead into halftime, and Lenape nearly rallied back, closing to within 20-14 in the fourth quarter, but senior QB Matt Yascko’s second touchdown run of the game sealed the deal.
Click below to hear all the live play-by-play from Mike Pavlichko and Justin Sontupe:
1976. 1991.
And now, 2022.
Senior quarterback Matt Yascko rushed for a career high 168 yards on 18 carries – that weren’t necessarily part of the game plan – and the Edison defense registered seven sacks, as the 6th-seeded Eagles won at top-seed Lenape Friday night, 28-14, to take home the Central Jersey Group 5 title.
It was the Eagles’ first title since 1991, and they are now 3-0 all-time in sectional finals.
Edison, now 9-3 on the season, will take on Toms River North next weekend – on either Saturday or Sunday – in the Group 5 semifinals at Cherokee High School, about a 15-minute drive from where they won Friday night. The top-seeded Mariners are now 12-0 after beating 2nd-seed Kingsway 48-14 for their first title since 2015.
Edison took a 13-0 lead in the game, capitalizing on several Lenape miscues, including a bad snap on one punt, and allowing the Eagles to block another.
The first TD came courtesy of a 13-yard run by Nyekir Eato, with Matt Yascko’s five-yard TD run good for the second score. Tight end Michael Strachan caught a five-yard TD pass after that bad snap by Lenape set the Eagles up with first-and-goal at the five, and Edison took a 20-0 lead into the locker room.
Lenape would make it a game in the third and fourth quarters, capitalizing on some Edison miscues. They got it to 20-14 with just under seven minutes to play, but Yascko would run another score in from 11 yards out to seal the deal with under four minutes to play.
Click below for postgame reaction from Mike Pavlichko with Edison players down on the field after the win:
