Despite a 20-point game from Penn-bound senior Ethan Lin, Central 4 champion Montgomery lost 49-40 to North 2, Group 4 Champion Plainfield in the NJSIAA state Group 4 title game. It was Plainfield’s second straight state championship.
Click below to listen to Mike Pavlichko and Alec Crouthamel call all the play-by-play from Rutgers University’s Jersey Mike’s Arena in Piscataway on March 14, 2026.
The Montgomery boys’ basketball team felt good about its chances coming into Saturday afternoon’s NJSIAA Group 4 state final at Rutgers, and they had plenty of reason to.
All season long, they have gotten outstanding performances from different players every night, with Ethan Lin running the show, Shriyans Mallavarapu blocking shots, Xavier Harrigan coming off the bench to play lock down defense, and Connor Benedict and Mike Simborski connecting from beyond the arc.
And they got that again, with the teams playing a tight first three quarters. Plainfield led 13-9 after one, with the second quarter seeing the lead change four times. It was 22-20 Cardinals at the half.
Whenever it looked like Plainfield was going to pull away, Monty would hit a big shot, whether it was a buzzer-beating three at the end of the first to trim a five-point deficit to two, or Simborksi from the college range on the left wing at the third-quarter horn to slash a seven-point deficit to four.
But the matchup zone defense of Plainfield caused Monty headaches all night, and by late in the game, their long possessions were stretching longer, and with a few misses, The Cards won the rebounding battle in the second half. It was tied 11-11 at the break, but the Cougars were left with a lot of one and dones, and they had a 12-5 advantage on the glass over the last 16 minutes.
And the exclamation mark was a thunderous one-handed jam by Gordon, streaking to the basked from the left wing on a break off a pretty feed from Kamai Lowery with 4:26 left. If it didn’t mathematically put the game out of reach, everyone in the building could sense that it was a harbinger of the celebration that would come when the clock finally winked down to :00.
Lin finished with 20 in the game – including four treys, and two in the fourth quarter – tied for game-high honors with Gordon, a junior who is uncommitted, but has offers from Tennessee, Mississippi State and North Carolina state, among others. Lin, meanwhile, in his last game as a Cougar, will be headed down to The Palestra to play for Penn.
Senior Kamai Lowery finished with 12 for Plainfield (26-5), while fellow senior Rashawn Williams added ten, including a pair of triples.
Sophomore Connor Benedict finished with nine for Montgomery (26-5), while Mallavarapu had six, but all were in the first half.
Click below for postgame reaction from Alec Crouthamel with head coach Kris Grundy, presented by Sportsplext at Metuchen:
At the end of the day, throw the seeds out, and just look at where the two teams playing in Saturday’s Group 4 state boys’ basketball title game rank statewide.
Montgomery was a three-seed in its Central Jersey Group 4 playoff section, and had to go on the road to beat top-seed Hillsborough in overtime to win it. Plainfield was a four-seed in North 2, Group 4 and had to travel to beat a higher seed as well – Linden, the two – to win the title.
But these are not your typical three- and four-seeds. Montgomery is the tenth-ranked team in the state, per NJ.com, with Plainfield five spots ahead. They are No. 1 and No. 2 when you take out the non-publics.
And quite truthfully, that’s more like it.
But no matter how you slice it, whoever is inside Jersey Mike’s Arena at Rutgers Saturday when Montgomery (26-4) and Plainfield (25-5) play for the Group 4 title in a rematch of last year’s title game should get every single penny of their dollar’s worth.
You can hear that game live on Central Jersey Sports Radio – for free, with no paywall – beginning with the pregame show, set for 1:40 pm with Mike Pavlichko and Alec Crouthamel. Click here to listen.
The Cougars have it going on all cylinders right now, and have been well-tested in the state tournament. After a blowout win over Manalapan in the opening round of the sectionals, they earned a ten-point win over Trenton, then went on the road and won back-to-back games: by 12 at Marlboro and 55-47 in OT at neighboring Hillsborough to take home their third straight sectional title, and fourth overall, all of which have come under current head coach Kris Grundy.
And he has a more than capable team.
It starts with Ethan Lin, the Penn-bound senior point guard who runs the show, in every sense of the word. Through the sectional finals, he had poured in 25, 31, 30 and 22 points, but one might be prompted to wonder how he was held to just nine in the Group 4 semis against Cherry Hill.
Watch the game, and you’ll know. Lin has an uncanny ability to know when he has to score, and when he doesn’t. He’ll gladly concede 20 points off his game to let someone else have them if that means Montgomery wins.
And that’s what he did against Cherry Hill East Tuesday night. He kept feeding the ball to two sophomores, Mike Simborski and Shriyans Mallavarapu. Simborski finished with 28, three shy of a career high, while Mallavarapu topped his previous best of 16 points with 23, while he also grabbed 12 rebounds and said “no” to a number of layup attempts by the other team named the Cougars.
But those three are just the start. Connor Benedict – always busy making deflections and stealing the ball – also can light it up from three. And then there’s the literal “X” factor off the bench, junior Xavier Harrigan, a multi-sport athlete who recorded 49 tackles last year – 41 solo – from his spot in the secondary.
Monty has four losses all year: twice to Rutgers Prep – once in the regular season and once in the Somerset County Tournament – once to North 2, Group 4 finalist Linden, and once to newly-minted Non-Public Group B state champion Gill St. Bernard’s.
Not bad at all.
On the Plainfield side, the Cardinals won’t win 30 games again this year – they finished 29-3 last season – but are still among the top public schools in the state
Micah Gordon – an uncommitted junior with his biggest offers from Tennessee and Mississippi State, among others – is the top dog (bird?) for the Cards. The point guard is averaging a shade under 25 points a game on the season, and he’ll eclipse the 2,000-point mark in his career very early next season/later in 2026, already sitting at 1,821 points.
He’s scoring at a 24.4 point per game clip in the state playoffs, where – even more impressive, in a dominating win over Linden – he had perhaps his finest moment in the tournament: 33 points, seven assists, three treys, and something you rarely see at any level of basketball: 14-of-16 from the foul line.
Then three of the next four top scorers – seniors Rashawn Williams, Devin Thomas, and Kamai Lowery – are, like Montgomery’s Harrigan – football players, and bring a unique dynamic to a team that plays in the rugged Union County Conference.
Williams and another senior, Tylor Hunter, are the team’s top rebounders, while Gordon and Thomas have each hit 48 triples on the year.
With two point guards who can take over the game at any time, this one might be as entertaining for the offensive exploits of those on the floor as it is watching each side’s defense try to contain the other side.
Click below for preview interviews with both head coaches:
Quirky/Useless Stat of the Day: Montgomery is 2-0 against teams whose schools start with the letter C. Ironically, both are named “Cougars.” They had a 72-32 win over the Central Jersey College Charter Cougars on January 30th, and beat the Cherry Hill East Cougars Tuesday in the Group 4 semifinals, 67-57.
LINKS TO PREVIOUS MONTGOMERY STATE TOURNAMENT COVERAGE:
You could feel it walking into the building. Playoff basketball intensity.
Or, to be more specific, before walking into the building, in a line that stretched nearly the entire length of Piscataway High School ahead of the North 2 Group 4 semifinal between the top-seeded Chiefs (23-8) and fourth-seeded Plainfield.
In the end, though, the Cardinals’ (22-5) top-end talent and pressure on both sides of the floor propelled Plainfield to a 73-56 road victory, continuing its quest to defend its Group 4 state title from last year.
The Cardinals took the “basketball is a game of runs” adage to the extreme, working three different “Killshots” — a run of 10-0 or more, coined by college basketball data scientist Evan Miyakawa — to pull ahead for good and keep the game out of reach.
Plainfield star guard Micah Gordon led all scorers with 23 points, as part of a quartet of Cardinals in double-figures. Forward Rashawn Williams added 18 points as a force at the basket, while Devin Thomas added 11 and Tylor Hunter scored ten points.
Senior forward Isaiah Fowler led Piscataway’s offense in one of his top scoring performances of the year, scoring a team-high 22 points with four three-pointers. Guards Josh Lima and Landon Pernell also added 13 and 12 points, respectively.
Both teams came out of the gate throwing haymakers, with a combined five three-pointers in the first quarter. The Chiefs caught fire near the midway point of the frame, building up a 17-10 lead with an 11-3 run.
That was when Plainfield woke back up.
The Cardinals worked an extended 18-0 run to take a double-digit lead for the first time, as their backcourt pressure and uptempo offense took Piscataway completely out of its rhythm. It felt like an avalanche falling on the Chiefs with multiple backcourt steals in a row, as Gordon electrified the always-raucous Plainfield faithful with a dazzling array of finishes at the basket.
Piscataway managed to slow it down on offense and worked its way back into the game towards the end of the first half, knocking down two straight treys to cut the deficit to five points. But just when it seemed like the Chiefs were landing their counterpunch — with an equally frenzied home crowd of their own — the Cardinals landed another blow with an 11-0 run to end the first half, going into the locker room with a commanding 41-25 lead.
Plainfield kept the foot on the gas to open the third quarter, as well. Piscataway senior forward Donald Nwaigwe drew an and-one in the post, but Thomas and Gordon each knocked down deep three-pointers to stretch the Cardinals’ lead to 20 points in the half’s opening minutes.
Even with the big-time deficit, the Chiefs had one final burst left in them, working a 13-2 run to cut the deficit to nine points. Plainfield kept up the trend and responded accordingly, ripping off another 10-0 run, ending the third quarter with an 18-point lead and all of the momentum.
The Cardinals slowed the pace down with the big lead in the fourth quarter and worked some timely buckets, including six points from Williams.
In a battle of teams of similar size and uptempo style, Plainfield came away victorious thanks to its devastating spurt-ability and took control for good.
The Cardinals will face off against second-seeded Linden — who defeated the three-seed Union in the opposite semifinal — for a chance at a second straight sectional title in their third straight appearance. Piscataway’s season comes to a close in Bob Turco’s second year at the helm, moving a round further than a season ago.
Click below to hear postgame reactions from Piscataway head coach Bob Turco with Central Jersey Sports Radio’s Alec Crouthamel, presented by the Sportsplex at Metuchen:
Our goal at Central Jersey Sports Radio since our founding in 2020 has always been to bring attention to all the great things done by the many outstanding student-athletes in our area, both on and off the field.
Even with Honorable Mentions in each category, just having one each of Offensive, Defensive Special Teams and Two-Way Player of the Year isn’t quite enough to cover the massive 59-team Big Central Conference.
So, in our quest to honor as many great student-athletes as possible, here are our 2024 Central Jersey Sports Radio Specialty Awards:
“Hard Nosed Runner” Award: Sam Dech, Phillipsburg
Last year, it was Jett Genovese and Matthew Scerbo, Jr., receiving the “Dynamic Duo” award. This season, it’s another Phillipsburg football player with a specialty award.
Sam Dech seems to define Phillipsburg football. They all say they live by D.I.G. – Discipline, Ignore the Noise, Grit – but for Dech it’s however much more that can be possible.
Even in a postgame interview, he’ll tell you “that’s what we wanted to do and we just came out and did it.”
Well, they don’t get there without Dech, who is a bruising runner who’s nearly impossible to bring down. Okay, not impossible, but be assured that if you hit him at the ten yard line, he’s going to bring you at least another five yards toward the end zone by the time he’s down.
That was invaluable on a 2025 team that lost Genovese and Scerbo – the second of whom was the school’s all-time leading receiver – as well as fellow receiver Felix Matos to graduation.
Click below to hear Mike Pavlichko talk with Phillipsburg’s Sam Dech:
The “Great Hands” Award: R.J. Wortman, Colonia
Good Hands was already taken, but Wortman is more than good hands. He’s great hands.
Colonia always seems to be a place where things happen without a lot of fan fare. But one day, you turn around, and Tom Roarty has his team in a sectional semifinal game in one of the hallowed grounds of high school football in New Jersey, Maloney Stadium.
The same could be said for R.J. Wortman, who heading into that North 2, Group 4 semi against Phillipsburg, was nearing 100 receptions on the year, and finished with a cool 101. The next highest wasn’t even that close.
They weren’t all long passes from senior QB Dylan Chiera, who threw for over 2,000 yards this season, one of three Middlesex County quarterbacks to do so in 2025. There were a few dinks and dunks in there, but it kept defenses on their toes, that’s for sure, with so many different ways to use him.
Couple that with the fact Wortman is a great teammate. No sooner did he commit to Greg Schiano and Rutgers – where he signed last week and will enroll early in January, skipping his senior season on the basketball court – but he was already active on Twitter, propping up all of his teammates, trying to make sure college coaches take a look at them just like they did with him.
Overall, Wortman finished with 101 catches for 1,307 yards (118.8 per game) with 15 touchdowns for the 7-4 Patriots.
Click below to hear Alec Crouthamel talk with Colonia’s R.J. Wortman:
“Is He A Lineman? Is He a Fullback” Award: Mike Bellamy, Montgomery
Senior Mike Bellamy has football in the family. His father, Joe – owner of Bellamy & Son Paving – played it, and has coached it for years at the youth level in their previous hometown of Piscataway. His brothers Joe and Rocco played for the Chiefs, with Joe on that 2018 team that won the North Jersey Group 5 Bowl Championship, beating Ridgewood at MetLife Stadium to become the first Middlesex County school to go 13-0 in a season, setting a county win record that still holds.
So, it was clear Mike would play football.
He’s an accomplished long-snapper, and has been a solid two-way lineman for a few seasons now. But this year, a new wrinkle was added: he would run the football.
Bellamy’s is not the story of an offensive lineman who fell on a couple of luckily-timed fumbles in the end zone to give his offense a score. No, no. This was all by design.
In fact, Bellamy carried eleven times this season for 38 yards, scoring four touchdowns, one each against Linden and Woodbridge in the regular season, then against Westfield and the Barrons again in the playoffs.
Click below to hear Mike Pavlichko talk with Mike Bellamy of Montgomery:
“I’m Back” Award: Devin Thomas, Plainfield
The last time we saw Devin Thomas the football player, he was quarterbacking the junior varsity at St. Thomas Aquinas, where Donald Jones, now Plainfield’s head coach, was an assistant.
Thomas transferred to Plainfield as a sophomore to represent his hometown, then gave up football to focus on basketball as a junior. It seemed a pretty good decision; Thomas scored in double-figures 12 times, helping lead the Cardinals to a Group 4 championship last March.
When Jones took over as Plainfield head coach last spring, he gauged Thomas’s interest in coming back to the gridiron.
“Why not?”
Six months later, everyone agrees it paid off.
Thomas threw for 2,214 yards and 29 touchdowns. He ran for another 482 yards and 4 scores. Week-in and week-out, Thomas put up video game numbers under center for Plainfield.
He put an exclamation point on his stellar season with a 296-yard, 4-touchdown masterpiece in Plainfield’s final regular season game – a 28-27 come-from-behind win at Linden that clinched the Cardinals’ spot in the North 2, Group 5 playoffs.
Click below to hear Justin Sontupe talk with Devin Thomas of Plainfield:
“Comeback” Award: Jack Kalikas, A.L. Johnson
A.L. Johnson standout athlete Jack Kalikas broke his leg in October 2024. Faced with the same situation, some might wonder if they’d ever play at a high level again.
Not Jack; he wondered if he’d be able to return to play hockey that season.
While that goal proved to be a bit out of reach, it kept him going.
Jack then set his sights on returning for lacrosse in the spring. And although he couldn’t fully come back in time, the determination accelerated the recovery process.
By summer, Jack was full go and back on the football field for A.L. Johnson. On top of that, he’d be playing for his dad, Gus Kalikas, A.L. Johnson’s athletic director-turned-head coach.
Almost one full year after breaking his leg, Jack led A.L. Johnson to a 7-2 record, playing quarterback and linebacker for the Crusaders.
Next up: hockey and lacrosse.
Click below to hear Justin Sontupe talk with Jack Kalikas of A.L. Johnson:
“Body Builder” Award: Brady Gallogly, Piscataway
Originally nominated for the Longevity Award, this one really fit him more.
Brady had always played wide receiver, but an opportunity came up where Piscataway needed a center. Ever the eager freshman, he made the suggestion.
Now, he wasn’t quite dealing with a coach who barely knew him, because his father, Frank Uhrin, is the team’s offensive coordinator. He played at Piscataway, too, as did Brady’s uncle, Robert, who also was a smaller-sized lineman on the 2002 Central Jersey Group 4 championship team, the last to be coached by legend Joe Kuronyi. His uncle, Tommy “Guns” Uhrin, was a skill player for the Chiefs in the 1990s.
But beyond all that, Gallogly had work to do. He only weight 160 pounds at the time, but with weight lifting, diet, and a training regimen, he got where he needed to be and became adept at making all the movements offensive linemen need to make.
Click below to hear Chris Tsakonas talk with Piscataway’s Brady Gallogly:
The “Tough Break for a Record-Breaker” Award: Thomas Diemar, Bernards
Coming into Game Three of the 2026 season, with at least a half-dozen games to go, you’d figure, senior Thomas Diemarr should have blown away the school’s all-time career sack record.
He already had it, with 22: ten each his sophomore and junior seasons, and two already in the first two games. This was his chance to make it nearly untouchable.
Then, in the first quarter, he plants funny in the end zone on a kickoff, with no one around him.
He sorely wanted back in the game, which turned out to be a win over Delaware Valley.
As it turned out, he tore his ACL, and his senior season would be done.
Diemar was a bit surprised when head coach Jon Simoneau picked him for first team All-Patriot Gold Division. But he shouldn’t have been. He deserved it, or he would have had he played.
Coach decided to honor a young man who, himself, has honored and respected the program Simoneau has built. That’s why he got the recognition, and that’s why he gets ours!
Click below to hear Alec Crouthamel talk with Thomas Diemar of Bernards:
The “Sure, I’ll Play Quarterback” Award: Alex Schwark, Summit
The “Best Player Not To Play A Snap” Award: Cole Sabol, Summit
These two awards go hand-in-hand, if you’ll just follow along.
Cole is a multi-sport athlete, and he tore his Achilles last spring in lacrosse, on the very first day of the season. After getting evaluated, he found out he’d also miss football season. That’s when Alex Schwark took the job, having never played it before.
And he did well. In fact, when he got hurt later in the year, the Hilltoppers dropped those two games, then continued winning when he was back in the lineup, three weeks later in a 10-7 win upset at previously-unbeaten Woodbridge.
But Schwark never would have done so well without Sabol, who was nominated for the Leadership Award by Coach Kevin Kostibos. Why? Because he could have walked away and sulked, but instead led the team in practices, meetings, gatherings, and games. He took his teammates under his wing, including Schwark, helping to make him the quarterback he became, even if he was sharing time with Matt McKeever down the stretch, with both of them on the field at the same time.
Click below to hear Alec Crouthamel talk with Summit’s Cole Sabol and Alex Schwark:
Mickye Simmons rushed for two touchdowns while QB Landon Pernell threw for two more, and second-seeded Piscataway picked up a 29-14 win over visiting seventh-seeded Plainfield in the opening round of the North Jersey, Section 2, Group 5 playoffs.
Click below to listen to Mike Pavlichko and Max Scheiner call all the play-by-play live from Kenny Armwood Stadium in Piscataway, NJ, on November 1, 2025:
The way Plainfield’s first drive went it looked like this would be a fast game, and one where points would be at a premium.
They were, but more for the Cardinals than their neighbors from Piscataway.
The second-seeded Chiefs got two touchdown runs from Mickye Simmons, and two touchdown passes from Landon Pernell – one each to Josiah Zayas and Sean Love – en route to a 29-14 win over seventh-seed Plainfield that wasn’t quite as close as the final score indicated.
Plainfield won the toss, took the ball, and held it for more than 12 minutes, into the second quarter, but came up empty. So too, did Piscataway, but after holding the Cards to a three-and-out, got on the board with a 41-yard touchdown pass to Sean Love with just 44 seconds to go in the first half. A two-point conversion after a penalty on the PAT made it 8-0, and that was how the first half would end.
After the break, Pisctaway started to take control. A seven-yard TD pass to Josiah Zayas made it a two-score lead at 15-0, and a three-yard run by Simmons made it 22-0 with 8:06 to go in the fourth.
Plainfield eventually got on the board on a 12-yard catch by Tylor Hunter, but Piscataway answered right back with another Simmons run, and anything else would just change the final score, but not the outcome.
Piscataway had a stronger game up front – one of head coach Dan Higgins’ goals coming in – and that ended up being the difference, as Pernell had time to throw when he wanted to, and the Chiefs only had one or two negative yardage plays.
The Chiefs (8-2) will move on to host 6th-seed Bayonne (7-3) in the sectional semifinals next Saturday at noon at Kenny Armwood Stadium. A win would give Piscataway its first berth in a sectional final since 2018, when they won the North 2, Group 5 title and beat Ridgewood in the North 5 bowl championship, becoming the first – and no one has done it since – Middlesex County school to win 13 games in a season, finishing 13-0.
The other semifinal will feature top-seed Bridgewater-Raritan (7-3) hosting fourth-seed Union City (6-3).
Click below for postgame reaction from Central Jersey Sports Radio’s Marcus Borden, presented by Sportsplex at Metuchen!
Sometimes, playoff games can be a contrast in styles, ever the more challenging when you have an unfamiliar opponent. Sometimes one system wins over another.
But when seventh-seed Plainfield (4-5) and second-seed Piscataway (7-2) meet Saturday afternoon in a North Jersey, Section 2, Group 5 first-round playoff game, that will hardly be the case.
The two are neighboring towns, even though they have generally played in different leagues over the years, at least until the merger of the Mid-State and GMC Conferences to form the Big Central in 2020. They have only met once – in a 2008 playoff game the Chiefs won – and yet, they are intimately acquainted.
READ MORE: Our Group 4 and 5 playoff preview is here!
Sharing a border – which also divides Middlesex and Union County – the kids on both of these teams know each other well, practicing, working out and even socializing throughout the year, when they’re not on the football field.
And that should make for a great opening round matchup, filled with excitement, energy, and plenty of playoff tension, but with a healthy dose of respect between opponents as well.
“We know Piscataway, and they know us,” Plainfield head coach Donald Jones said this week. “It’s going to be fun.”
You can hear the game live on Central Jersey Sports Radio as our “Big Central Game of the Week” presented by Bellamy & Son Paving, with pregame at 12:45, and kickoff at 1 pm. Mike Pavlichko and Max Scheiner will be on the call; click here to listen.
Both teams have a ton of talent all over the field. Plainfield has had a more up-and-down season, but they have skill players that could fit on the Piscataway side of the field, they’re just looking for a little more consistency. When it goes right for the Cardinals, they play a smart, focused game.
We saw Plainfield earlier this season in a loss to Somerville, but that raw talent was on display. And quarterback Devin Thomas is dynamic. He leads the team in rushing with 466 yards, but also has thrown for over 2,000 yards and 27 touchdowns. More notably, he’s only thrown two interceptions all season, while the Piscataway defense has surged of late in the takeaway department, making that a fun matchup to watch.
On the other side, Piscataway also has playmakers, and got two former Chiefs back in the program when Josiah Zayas and Mickeye Simmons returned from St. Thomas Aquinas to play their senior seasons in their hometown. After they sat the requisite 30 days due to NJSIAA transfer rules, it took a little while to get them acclimated into the game plan, but head coach Dan Higgins believes that’s all worked itself out, and his team is playing its best football at the right time of year.
Click below to hear preview interviews with both head coaches and Central Jersey Sports Radio’s Mike Pavlichko:
It’s time for the playoffs!
We got through opening weekend in the sweltering heat of the late dog days of August. We didn’t really have much of a fall, but the weather mostly nice. And Cutoff Weekend last weekend saw some teams sweating it out, some disappointed, and others rewarded for their play during the season.
Now, it’s time to get it all going!
Here’s Central Jersey Sports Radio’s look at all the playoff games involving BCC schools this weekend, section by section in Groups 4 and 5, including game dates and times. Games are Friday, except where noted.
Find our preview of Group 1, 2 and 3 schools will by clicking this link.
NORTH JERSEY, SECTION 2, GROUP 5:
CENTRAL JERSEY GROUP 5:
NORTH JERSEY, SECTION 2, GROUP 4:
With Friday night’s Cutoff Weekend high school football games all in the books, Central Jersey Sports Radio is updating the unofficial NJSIAA playoff standings as we head into Saturday action.
We’ll have further analysis late morning into the afternoon Saturday, with our 2025 “Playoff Projection Show” scheduled for 6 pm where we give our bracket projections. The full tournament for the public schools will be unveiled on Sunday by the NJSIAA via Gridiron New Jersey. We’ll have them shortly after. The brackets become official at noon on Monday.
NORTH GROUP 5
SOUTH GROUP 5
