West Orange, N.J……. Hoop Journal caught the second semifinal of the Essex County Tournament and watched Seton Hall Prep, the #1 seed in the Essex County Tournament advance to the finals by beating #4 seed Columbia 61-48! Junior Spencer Wiesz (pictured)scored 20 points and grabbed 10 rebounds while Senior Dallas Anglin and Senior Stephon Mosley scored 12 a piece and Junior Tom Lacey chipped in 11! The game was close most of the way, but Prep slowly wore down Columbia late! Senior Maxim Michel led Columbia with 12 points, Sophomore Robert Gordon added 10 points and Freshman Michael Runcic who looks to have a bright future added 8 points and 3 steals! Prep will play University February 25th!

Kennedy H.S. Paterson, N.J……. The Passaic County Tournament final has been decided and Eastside and DePaul will play for the County “Chip” at Wayne Valley H.S. next weekend!

                                     DEPAUL  60                     HAWTHORNE CHRISTIAN  54

 Hawthorne Christian can keep their head up high as they were right there the entire contest, but in the end DePaul made the plays and held off the upset! Senior Davon Jacobs, 1500WGHT Am player of the game was his usual hard nosed self as he had to go head up against 6’7 Sophomore stud Alex Thomas and more than held his own scoring 13 points and pulling down 13 boards and Junior Josh Marquez came off the bench for this game and scored 14 points, dished out 5 assists and made big plays down the stretch for DePaul, but the main reason for the win had to do with the Spartans Sophomore duo of Juwaun Carter(left) and Kiy Hester(right)! Carter led the scoring with 17 points and 6 rebounds,while Kiy Hester added 10 points, 5 assists and 2 steals and finished the scoring with a layup at the end! Hawthorne Christian were only down three 44-41 at the end of the 3rd as Thomas picked it up in the 2nd half, scoring 14 of his 15 points in the half! He also finished the game with 8 rebounds! Senior Paul Little added 14 points and Sophomore Chris Aust played well, scoring 14 points(4″triples”) with 5 assists! Aust trey cut the lead to 55-52 with 1:18 left but Marquez hit one of two free throws and Carter made two to keep the game at two possessions!

                                                       EASTSIDE  68                  KENNEDY  52

               Senior DeAndre Noble-Haywood(left) scored 19 points and Senior Ky’re Jackson(right) added 16 points and 12 rebounds as Eastside advances to the final of the Passaic County Tournament! Noble-Haywood 1500 WGHT AM Player of the Game hit a free throw late to reach the 1,000 point scoring mark for his career! While these two were huge in the game their teammates, particularly Junior Jetor Brown(14pts), Senior Nassir Crawford and Senior Jordan Smith were part of arun that more or less decided the game! Kennedy had played well in the 1st quarter leading 14-10 and was ahead 20-13 in the 2nd when the Ghosts went on a 20-0 run to end the half! It gave Eastside a 33-20 halftime lead and Eastside maintained that lead the rest of the way! Eastside also did a great job of shadowing Senior Sammy Singletary as he was held to 10 points! Junior Hassan Towns led the Knights with 15 points and Freshman Donte Wise added 12 points and 7 rebounds! Wise continues to show a big upside!               

Jersey City, N.J………Hudson Catholic was coasting with 7:00 minutes left in the 2nd quarter! The Hawks had a 37-8 lead over Memorial and Junior Reggie Cameron had already scored 21 points in the contest! Then Junior Kavon Stewart got a rebound, found Senior Grant Ellis who dropped a beautiful dime to Junior Mike Young! Young went up to dunk and when he came down the rim came down with him! Shockingly, Mike Young(left) had shattered the backboard! The game was suspended because this is not the Pro’s and rims don’t get put back up that quick……!!! The game will resume Sunday at 3:00pm at Hudson Catholic at the point of the dunk! Check out You Tube! The unusual play is already up!!