Boys Basketball: Immaculata remains undefeated with strong finish
WARREN – Immaculata High School’s boys basketball team is 6-0 for the first time in Ryan McKeever’s 10 years as head coach. Even when he was an assistant under former coach Michael Frauenheim and Gamal Mohamed, John Mack and future NFL player Theo Riddick and teammates were winning a second straight Non-Public A state title in 2009 and finished 26-4.
So it’s unprecedented territory the current Spartans arrived at after Tuesday night’s 62-55 win over Watchung Hills in a Skyland Conference Raritan Division game. Immaculata is 6-0 overall and 3-0 in division. Watchung Hills is 5-1 and 1-1.
Immaculata was ranked No. 3 in this week’s Courier News Top 10. Watchung Hills was No. 4.
What the Spartans haven’t done is put two suffocating halves together.
For the second time in a couple of weeks, the Spartans looked like they were going to win an expected taut division game in a rout. On Dec 20, the Spartans led Ridge by 18 at half and won 80-73. They led Watchung Hills 28-18 at half and 49-33 after three. But the Warriors closed to 59-55 with under a minute to play before senior Sean Givens hit two free throws with 15 seconds left to ease the anxiety.
“Watchung Hills wasn’t going to back down, they weren’t gonna quit, but we got to do a better job of being stronger with the ball and better with our decision making down the stretch,” said McKeever.
Givens finished with 19 points, six rebounds and four assists. Senior forward Davis Adams had 13 points and 16 rebounds before fouling out with 4:40 to play in regulation. Junior Chigozie Anyora had 11 points and nine rebounds.
“We knew coming up here being on the road would be a tough game in a tough atmosphere, but we were able to pull away,” said McKeever. “I thought we got off to a really good start. We showed good defensive energy, closing out in the lanes, getting some rebounds.”
Watchung Hills definitely had opportunities to stay close in the first half. But the Warriors missed 15 layups and were a disappointing 3-of-24 from three-point range for the game. Watchung Hills shot abysmal 34 percent.
“We had a tough time finishing and when you don’t finish around the rim it’s tough against good teams,” said Watchung Hills’ coach Justin Salton.
Immaculata had a 41-32 edge in rebounds, limiting plenty of Warrior possessions to one and done.
“We had what I thought was a very tough practice yesterday, we want to make sure the games are the easy part after we go through practice like that,” said McKeever.
Senior guard Brayden Kolakowski had 17 points and five rebounds for Watchung Hills and senior guard Aleck Graf added 10 second-half points and 10 rebounds.
This article originally appeared on MyCentralJersey.com: NJ Boys Basketball: Immaculata remains undefeated with strong finish
