McKee/SI Tech – Central Jersey Sports Radio

About the only thing that didn’t go right for Piscataway in what head coach Bob Turco hopes is the first of many Outerbridge Crossing Challenge season-opening showcases is that it wasn’t on his own home court.

Flood damage from a fall rainstorm led to the floor and bleachers needing to be replaced, and the work still has another week to go before it’s finished.

But the Chiefs already looked in mid- and late-season form, like the team that went all the way to the GMC Tournament final in 2025, beating McKee/Staten Island Tech (NY) 76-20 in their season-opener Saturday afternoon at Edison High School, one of three alternate locations for the event’s debut.

Losing Nate Davis and Vaughn Turner is significant for the Piscataway, but if Game One is any indication, the Chiefs have plenty of athletes who have bought in to Turco’s defense first mentality.

He believes defense leads to offense, and that’s exactly what happened against MSIT. Isaiah Fowler and Donald Nwaigwe scored eleven and ten points in the first quarter, respectively, en route to a 28-2 lead.

Turco made wholesale changes in the second quarter, and there was little drop-off. While that group didn’t score as much, they didn’t let McKee get into double figures in the quarter, holding them to just nine points en route to a 51-11 lead at the break which would kick in a running clock in the second half.

Four Piscataway players scored in double figures in the win, led by 14 from the senior Fowler, including two treys; those 14 were a career best that Turco will love to see as the team works to develop depth.

The Chiefs hit seven times from beyond the arc, with Nwaigwe hitting twice, Landon Pernell and Josh Lime once each, with all three scoring ten,

Najay Best and Elijah Foster also hit triples.

Click below for postgame reaction from Piscataway and head coach Bob Turco with Central Jersey Sports Radio’s Alec Crouthamel, presented by Sportsplex at Metuchen:

It won’t be easy, it never is. But if it were, would it be as fun?

Bob Turco has made multiple coaching stops in his career, three of which have come in the Greater Middlesex Conference, where he’s the only coach to bring that many different schools to a GMC Tournament final.

But last year, when he brought the third of those teams to the championship game, may have been the most fun he’s had.

Going from St. Thomas Aquinas to a public school in Piscataway meant he’d no longer have to “build” a team; he would mostly get the kids he had, the ones who wanted to be there, and coach them up, then coach them up some more.

So, he took an 11-14 team in 2023-24 to 24-6, finishing second in the Red Division, along with a trip to the GMC finals, where they lost to Colonia. Not too shabby for Year One.

Year two starts Saturday in Edison in Game Two of the Outerbridge Crossing Challenge, an opening weekend showcase Turco wanted to host at Piscataway, but has been moved to various locations as their new gym floor awaits completion after heavy rains caused flooding this fall that damaged several athletic spaces.

The Chiefs will “host” McKee/Staten Island Tech out of New York City, which already has begin its season (they start earlier in New York) and is 3-2 on the year in the PSAL, the New York City Public School Athletic League. They were 11-15 last season.

You can hear the game on Central Jersey Sports Radio at approximately 2:30 pm, following the 1 pm opener between Edison and Petrides. Mike Pavlichko and Alec Crouthamel will call both games; click here to listen.

Head coach Charles Donohue is looking forward to the challenge, and looking at last year’s GMC finals against Colonia, he was impressed most with their poise under pressure, as well as their pressure and defense.

They return senior Nizayah Jordan, the Seagull’s top scorer last season, averaging 17.4 points per game, while hitting 53 times from beyond the arc. They’ll also be looking to get more scoring out of senior point guard Terrence Legrand.

For Piscataway, it’ll be dealing with graduation losses of Nate Davis (14.5 ppg, 53 treys, 49 steals) and Vaughn Turner (9.6 ppg, 5.3 rpg), but has plenty of talent back, including long-distance shooter Josh Lima (10.3 ppg), football starting QB Landon Pernell (7.9 pppg, 28 treys, team-best 116 assists) and swing Donald Nwaigwe (11.1 ppg, 6.4 rpg), the team’s top returning scorer from last year’s GMCT runner-up team.

Click below to hear a preview of the Piscatway/McKee-Staten Island Tech game from both head coaches