Madison Boys Basketball Clinches Share Of Division Title

DOVER – Nobody will be giving the Madison High School boys basketball team any style points for Thursday night's narrow 58-54 win at Dover.

But that's OK with the Dodgers. They'll take the banner either way.

Madison (19-2, 11-1) came back from a 11-point first half deficit to clinch at least a share of the Northwest Jersey Athletic Conference-Independence Division title alongside Hanover Park. The Hornets (19-1, 10-1) also needed a second-half comeback to upend Parsippany, 43-37, Thursday night.

"My freshman year, we lost in the preliminary round of counties," said junior point guard Aaron Fant. "Last year, we got to a county final. This year, it's just a good feeling to be a champion."

It's a proud achievement for the Dodgers, who finished 12-14 last year and 8-15 two years ago. This season, Madison's only league loss came on a last-second layup at Hanover Park. The two teams would share the title if the Hornets win their final conference game, by virtue of their regular-season split against each other.

"(A conference title) is something I've never really experienced," said Madison coach Bill Librera, who, as an assistant at West Morris, saw Seton Hall Prep run roughshod over the old Iron Hills Conference-Iron Division. "It's a statement of what we've done since the day after Thanksgiving. I'm so proud of all of them for surviving like we did tonight."

Jake Meister led Madison with 21 points and five rebounds, while Fant added 17 and six rebounds.

But it was a struggle for the Dodgers, who survived Chatham in a four-overtime epic 24 hours earlier.

Madison trailed for most of the first three quarters before taking a narrow lead. But Dover (4-18, 1-10) doggedly fought back, using a 9-2 run midway through the fourth quarter to take a 46-45 lead.

That lead lasted just under 25 seconds, though, as on Madison's next possession, Fant rebounded a Meister miss, put it back for two and was fouled. The free throw gave Madison a 48-46 lead with 2:48 to play.

"We've played so many of these games, we've just got confidence that we're going to make the plays we need to," Librera said. "We don't like being in those situations, but we realize that 32 minutes ia a long time."

After Dover's Harriel Lacy missed a 3-pointer on the Tigers' next possession, Meister made two free throws to make it a two-possession game, and Dover never got closer than that again.

Dover came out firing on all cylinders, hitting four of their seven 3-point attempts in the first quarter. Darius Kersey's 3-pointer with 1:43 left in the first actually gave the struggling Tigers an 18-6 lead.

"We came out very lackadaisical," said senior Robbie Savacool (6 points, 5 rebounds). "We came out thinking we were going to rock this team, like last time (a 49-26 Madison win in Madison last month). But they came out and hit some shots and we got down early."

From that point on, Madison switched from a man defense to a 1-3-1 trapping zone, with some success. Dover made just four more 3-point shots and six shots from inside the arc over the final three quarters.

"They hit some shots in the beginning against the zone," Savacool said. "But we started to get used to it and started forcing them to take tougher shots by the second half."

Once Librera switched defenses, it was Madison's offensive struggles that became apparent. For the fifth straight game, the Dodgers simply could not get into any kind of outside shooting rhythm (2-for-11 from 3 Thursday, and 48 of 58 points coming on layups and free throws). According to Fant, that should give Madison plenty to work on as it heads into the state playoffs in a week and a half.

"We've got to start hitting jumpshots," Fant said. "We need to come out with more intensity, and not get down early and have to come back. Good teams will put you away if you do that too often."

With no outside shooting to speak of, Madison had to slowly crawl back in the game, relying on their defense to slow down Dover's streaky shooters and attacking the rim on offense.

Matt Gilbert's layup with 4:03 left in the second quarter capped an 11-2 run to cut Dover's lead to 20-17. But the Tigers led at halftime, 27-24, and well into the third quarter.

Madison finally tied the game at 34-34 with 2:56 to play after Mike Haughey corralled an offensive rebound and made a beautiful feed to Meister, who made the ensuing layup.

Meister gave Madison its first lead of the game 90 seconds later, knocking down his only 3-pointer of the game.

The Dodgers appeared to be poised to run away with the game, taking their largest lead of the game at that point–six–on an Eddie McAndrew layup with 5:44 left.

But Kersey and Justin Edmonds hit back-to-back 3-pointers against the zone to keep Madison from getting too far away. At that point, Librera switched back to man-to-man.

"We sat in it longer than usual," Librera said. "It did enough to disrupt them, I think. But we pride ourselves on our man-to-man. We think it's a good opening pitch and a good closing pitch."

But on the first time down the court against the man defense, Kersey beat it anyway. His three-point play gave Dover the lead back with 3:12 to go.

However, Madison retook the lead 25 seconds later, and once that happened, the game degenerated into a foul fest. Fant's putback at 2:48 was the last shot made from the field until Lenny Quiceno's 3-pointer completed the scoring with two seconds to play.

Somewhat distressingly for Librera, that stretch included seven Dover free throws as Madison tried to wrap up the game.

"We made some uncharacteristically poor defensive plays, but we survived," Librera said. "We didn't care how pretty it was. We came here to win a conference title, and we got what we wanted."

NEXT UP
Madison closes out the 2009-10 regular season next week with a pair of non-conference games, beginning with a trip to Morristown Tuesday night for a 7 p.m. tip off. The Dodgers will then celebrate their Senior Night two days later, when they host Morris Knolls.

SCORING SUMMARY
Madison  10  14  15  19  -  58
Dover       18    9    9  18  -  54

INDIVIDUAL SCORING
MAD- Jake Meister 21, Aaron Fant 17, Robbie Savacool 6, Matt Gilbert 6, Mike Haughey 4, Eddie McAndrew 2, Matt McHale 2
DOV- Justin Edmonds 12, Darius Kersey 12, Robert Munoz 8, Harriel Lacy 8, Lenny Quiceno 8, Kyle Joshy 4, Miles Singletary 2