By Jim Hintelmann
LINCROFT – High school basketball coaches always want to see their teams go into the postseason playing their best ball of the season, and certainly that is the case with Christian Brothers Academy.
The Colts (16-3) scored a pair of big victories over the weekend taking down rival Red Bank Catholic, 61-39, Saturday after avenging their lone setback to a Shore team the night before with a 69-58 win over Freehold Township. CBA then routed Manalapan Monday to clinch a share of the A Division North title.
“We’re hitting our stride now and are playing very well,” said CBA coach Geoff Billet, “but we have a big game with Elizabeth (17-0) next week.”
The RBC game, played in a sold-out CBA gym in front of many raucous CBA fans, was the most significant win with the Colts hitting 8 of 16 3-pointers along with a suffocating defense, especially the second and third quarters, when it held RBC to only eight points.
Photo by Patrick Olivero
“We beat RBC twice last year but they came in and beat us in the state tournament,” said senior Steve Braunstein, who scored 20 points including 8 of 11 shots from the floor. The win enabled CBA to keep the Founders Cup, which it won over RBC a year ago.
“Everyone came out all fired up,” said Braunstein. “We needed to play great defense on our home court in front of our fans, and we did. I’m happy that we played so well today.”
“We weren’t happy with that loss to RBC,” said 6-11 center Josh Cohen, who did it both ways with 17 points, 11 rebounds, five assists and three blocks. “That really fired us up today.”
Although ending up an easy CBA win, the game was very competitive until early in the second quarter.
RBC, in fact, grabbed an 11-6 lead on baskets by Charley Gordinier, Kevin Bauman and Stephen Lubischer before CBA went in front 14-13 at the end of the quar ter.
Gordinier, RBC’s leading scorer this season, who was held to 12 points by Mike White and Peyton Boesch, put RBC in front for the final time, 15-14, with a putback. The rest of the game, however, belonged to CBA.
Photo by Patrick Olivero
“Godinier hurt us last year,” said Cohen. “We couldn’t have that happen again and tried to stop him, and it worked out.”
Against Freehold Township, which handed CBA its only home court loss this season, Cohen and Braunstein scored 23 points apiece. Cohen also grabbed 17 rebounds for the Colts, who shot 8 of 17 from 3-point range.
CBA’s only other losses this year were to Gill St. Bernards, which upset Ranney School three weeks ago, and Hun School.
RBC, after playing very well until recently, including a 12-game winning streak, is in a bit of a slump with three losses in its last five games going into Tuesday’s game with A Central leader Manasquan.
