Perth Amboy Magnet – Central Jersey Sports Radio

We’re exactly two weeks from the NJSIAA cutoff for the state playoffs – May 17th – and teams across the area continue to jockey for position in the standings. Here’s a closer look beyond the numbers at where teams stand and what their chances are, based on NJ.com’s official standings as of games played on May 2nd. For a full explanation of the new power point formula, click here.

Central Jersey Group 2: The No. 1 team is still Metuchen (12-3, 22.127), as the Bulldogs went 4-1 since our last update, but they’re just 1.127 ahead of the next team, which is now Middlesex (11-4, 21). The Blue Jays were even better, going a perfect 3-0 in the week gone by, jumping them over Point Pleasant Beach (13-3, 19.2), which went 2-2 since our last check-in. With the fourth-place team, Delaware Valley (8-6) at 16.469 power points, we think it’ll be the Bulldogs, Blue Jays and Garnet Gulls battling it out for the top two spots, so Metuchen and Middlesex – if they keep doing what they’ve been doing – are locks for at least the top four.

Manville (9-5, 14.923) slipped from fifth to seventh this week, despite winning all three games they played, and their power point average going up. They could finish either side of the top eight, with a lot of teams closely bunched in here. South Amboy (5-9, 14.433) is right behind them, as well as Piscataway Magnet (7-7, 14.386) in ninth and Somerset Tech (6-6, 13.297) in tenth. Only 1.626 points separate the four, and we haven’t even talked about Florence, New Egypt or Dunellen (10-6, 12.543), all within less than two power points of the No. 8 spot. Anyone could land anywhere, and this one is just too close to call right now.

The next CJSR-area teams are all on the wrong side of the bubble, but at that spot in the standings, one or two late wins – when you only have a couple to begin with – could do wonders. That’s the hope for Perth Amboy Magnet (3-10, 9.177), Highland Park (2-11, 7.631) and Bound Brook (1-10, 7.209), all of whom are in positions 17 through 19, with the target being to at least outs 16th place Keyport (4-5, 9.677). If any of those teams can string together a couple of wins the last two weeks, they might just edge into the playoffs.

On a night when all but maybe two dozen teams or so across the entire state saw their games wiped out due to inclement weather – no, not snow, but heavy rain and high winds in January – we spent some time looking at some teams that have had big turnarounds in the Greater Middlesex Conference.

After all, the regular season is almost three weeks old, and we’re nearly halfway to the GMC seeding meeting on February second.

Time flies.

Sayreville (7-4, 3-3 GMC White)

The Bombers already have surpassed last year’s win total by a game. Sayreville went just 6-21 last season, but it wasn’t entirely unexpected, as head coach John Wojick essentially had two freshmen and a sophomore in the starting lineup.

That group has matured, and it’s showing on the court.

The Bombers were ranked last week, but got bounced after a January second loss to South Plainfield, 76-70, with the Tigers back in the Bellamy & Son Paving Top Ten this week.

And while Sayreville has hit a bit of a bump in the road, dropping three of their last four games, the schedule is a little more kind the next three games. They play their next two on the road – Thursday night at Perth Amboy and Saturday afternoon at Edison – before coming home to face JFK.

It gets a little tougher after that, with Woodbridge home, North Plainfield away, then a road game at Old Bridge out of the Red Division. That’s a big one, an opportunity for what the GMC seeding committee might consider a “quality win.”

Back to those players who endured a trial-by-fire last season? Sam Jones, now a sophomore, averaged 13 points a game last year, with 49 treys. He’s already hit 22, and has upped that points per game average to just under 16. And Chidi Chuwkwurah, another soph – has gone from 10.4 to 16.1 points per game, also attacking the glass at a bigger clip, too, averaging 5.9 boards per contest.

Monroe (8-1, 4-1 GMC Red)

We’ve already talked a bit about Monroe in this space, which already has to its credit a big win over St. Thomas Aquinas, knocking off the Trojans last week to firmly enter the GMC Red race. It’s their only game against each other, in the second year under a GMC pilot program that only requires Red Division teams to play each other once rather than twice, like all the others.

But more than that, the Falcons were just 5-18 a year ago, winning one game in the Red. They’ve beaten last year’s win total by three already, and are 4-1 in divisional play.

Senior Myles Marabuto has been a key factor in all this. He hit six in the win over Aquinas, and has 21 on the season, to go along with 16 from fellow senior Mark Laughery. With 63 triples on the season, only one GMC Red team has hit more – Aquinas with 64 – and the Falcons rank fourth in the GMC in that department, tied with Edison and Perth Amboy Magnet. (South Plainfield and Spotswood each have hit 69 treys on the season.)

Perth Amboy Magnet (6-4, 4-1 GMC Gold)

The Patriots went winless in their division last season, going just 2-19 overall. They’ve eclipsed that win total by four, and are 4-1 in the GMC Gold this season.

Perth Amboy Magnet has a new coach this year in Felix Romero, and so far the team has responded. It also helps they graduated just one senior in guard Andel Cordero Ramos, who only played nine games last year, scoring 31 points.

This year’s squad is led in scoring by two juniors: Christian Torres and Jeremy Valdez. Torres is averaging 10.7 points a game, and Valdez is at 10.2 per contest, combining for 33 of the team’s 63 triples on the season, tying them for fourth in the league with Monroe and Edison. (Calvary Christian, which leads the Gold, has hit 62.)

Torres and junior swing Dennis Feliciano are cleaning up on the glass, with just under five rebounds a game each.

It took the Patriots a little time to find their way this season, dropping their first three games, at home to Henry Hudson, then at Manville and Somerset Tech. But they got two wins on the board before the holidays, then split at the North Warren Holiday Extravaganza.

They dropped the opener, 51-40, to their hosts, but then came back and beat Somerset Tech by nine, avenging their 70-54 loss just eleven days prior.

They have a Wednesday game schedule against Calvary Christian, their first of two meetings this season, weather permitting after Tuesday night’s storms that cancelled the whole GMC slate.