Another Close Win For Madison Boys Basketball

POMPTON PLAINS – Five games into the season, Madison High School boys basketball coach Bill Librera can see his team's identity beginning to form. The Dodgers, the coach said, are a tough, fighting bunch that will go all-out to make plays in crucial moments.

Given the Dodgers continue to find themselves in close games late in the fourth quarter, that's not such a bad place to be.

Matt McHale scored 12 points and came up with a huge blocked shot in the final moments as the Dodgers won their fifth straight game to open the season, 49-45, at NJAC-Independence Division rival Pequannock Tuesday afternoon.

"They're just tough kids," Librera said. "We preach it to them, 'just finish.' They're a competitive bunch. They know they can't make every play, but they always think they'll make the next play."

Madison (5-0, 2-0 Independence) led 45-43 in the final minute and had possession. In the course of running the clock out, point guard Aaron Fant drove to the hoop and found McHale open and alone under the Golden Panthers' basket.

But McHale missed the layup, just one of two misses in his eight attempts, giving Pequannock a chance to tie or take the lead. Tommy Sackmann's mid-range jumper missed the mark, but Pequannock came up with the rebound and an unobstructed lane to the hoop. But McHale came in at the last moment and swatted it away. Fant scooped up the rebound with 41.8 seconds left, and made both free throws to make it a 47-43 Madison lead.

"I was angry at myself for missing the layup," McHale said. "But I had to have a short memory, and just come down and make a play on defense."

"Matt's a rare breed of size and athletic ability," Librera said. "He's been such a difference maker for us for two years, I couldn't have a better kid than him."

Pequannock (2-3, 0-1) pulled within two again after a pair of free throws by Joe Vedovino with 15.1 seconds to go, but forward Matt Gilbert came through and iced the game with a pair of clutch free throws–his only two points of the game–with 12.4 seconds on the clock.

The win was another gritty, close affair in a series of them for the Dodgers–they've won their last four games by a combined total of 22 points–giving credence to Librera's assessment. Neither team led by more than five points at any point, and though Pequannock led for most of the first three quarters, the Dodgers' largest deficit was just four.

The key run came courtesy of Jake Meister, who scored five straight points–including 3-for-4 from the free-throw line after aggressive drives to the basket–to break a tie score and give the Dodgers a 45-40 lead with 2:29 remaining.

Meister tied for the team high in scoring with 13, and added eight rebounds.

Sackmann drilled a 3-pointer with 1:07 to go to pull the Golden Panthers within two, setting up McHale's goat-turned-hero performance on each team's next possession.

Pequannock took a three-point lead into the fourth quarter after Vedovino made a free throw and a layup in the final six seconds of the third. For the next few minutes, though, Madison's defense locked down Pequannock, with Gilbert and Fant coming up with steals on four of Pequannock's first six possessions of the period.

"Our coach preaches defense to us," McHale said. "We knew we could stop them on defense, and if we got stops we could get out and score in transition."

Fant took two of the steals all the way for layups, and McHale was the beneficiary of a 5-on-2 fast break. Within 1:44 of the start of the fourth quarter, Madison had turned a 35-32 deficit into a 40-35 lead. Fant finished with 10 points on 4-of-7 shooting, eight assists and six steals.

Pequannock, a former Northern Hills Conference opponent which beat Madison twice last year, had kept a narrow lead much of the way Tuesday. It helped that the Golden Panthers' star, Jordan Tabakman, got off to a hot start, scoring 10 points in the first quarter.

But Librera remained confident in Rob Savacool, the senior stopper who is usually assigned to cover the opposition's best player, and it paid off. Tabakman scored just three points the rest of the way, notching just an offensive rebound putback in the third quarter and a solitary free throw midway through the fourth.

"Sometimes when a kid starts out hitting shots, all we can do is help our defender," Librera said. "We changed around our defense in the second quarter. We didn't change the personnel, but we changed how we helped out Robbie."

Savacool's sterling defensive effort over the final three quarters complemented his all-around solid line of six points, five rebounds and four blocks.

"Our team is so well-defined with regard to everyone's role," Librera said. "Robbie knows his role. He knows how to play defense, and it physically hurts him when other teams score on him."

Eddie McAndrew's three-point play with 1:15 left in the second quarter gave Madison its first lead, 19-18.

"We started off slow," Meister said. "But this was a big game, it meant a lot to us, and we knew we had to go and make plays to win."

The Dodgers expanded that lead to 24-21 early in the third quarter, but Pequannock went on an 11-4 run keyed by five points from Kenny Brunda. Layups from McHale and Fant tied the game at 32-32 with 32 seconds left in the period.

UP NEXT: After playing four straight games on the road since the Dec. 19 home opener, Madison returns home for three Independence Division games over the next eight days, beginning with Morris Catholic (2-4, 1-1) Thursday night.

SCORING SUMMARY

Madison           12  10  10  17   -  49

Pequannock   13    8   14   10  -  45

INDIVIDUAL SCORING

MAD- Matt McHale 12, Jake Meister 12, Aaron Fant 10, Rob Savacool 6, Mike Haughey 4, Eddie McAndrew 3, Matt Gilbert 2

PEQ- Jordan Tabakman 13, Kenny Brunda 10, Joe Vedovino 9, Steve Boyd 7, Tommy Sackmann 6