Boys Net a Victory Against Summit

With a postseason spot already assured, Cranford had one thing in mind when it traveled to Summit on Friday night: get back to its winning ways.

The Cougars were coming off consecutive losses, the second of those to a 6-13 Roselle team on Thursday night when the Cranford defense surrendered 70 points.

"We put three things on the board tonight and the last one was to score," said Cranford coach Ryan Huber, whose Cougars improved to 11-5 with a 50-37 victory over Summit. "We knew if we played defense and rebounded, we'd be able to put the ball in the basket. We did that well tonight."

The defense did indeed bounce back from the debacle against Roselle, limiting the Hilltoppers (7-8) to 14-of-44 shooting and forcing 19 turnovers. Summit made only 3 of 17 from beyond the arc.

The defense led to a lot of easy buckets at the other end, where Cranford, led by Chris Gross's 17 points, knocked down 20 of 42 shots.

But it was the high-energy play of guard Nick Pace that led to a lot of those easy buckets. Pace dished out seven assists, opening up his teammates for easy looks throughout the evening.

"Nick is like a gnat," Huber said. "He's got a 100-mile-an-hour motor going all the time. He creates in space and finds the open man."

Gross and Will Green were the beneficiaries of many of Pace's passes. Green scored 10 points and grabbed eight rebounds, while dishing out three assists of his own as the Cougars recorded 15 assists on their 20 field goals. That had Huber nearly as happy as his newfound defense.

"That's what this game is about," he said. "That's what we had to get back to. And that's what won us the game."

After a close battle through much of the first half – Summit led three times – Cranford began to separate itself with 9-3 run to close out the half. Twice Gross scored inside, while Green, put an offensive rebound back for two more. With six seconds remaining before intermission, Kendall Grier hit a three-pointer to send Cranford to the locker room up 27-17.

Of the Cougars' final six buckets of the half, Pace assisted on five of them.

Summit matched buckets with Cranford, which got a pull-up 16-footer from Green and a lay-up by Grier off a Green steal to hold on to their 10-point lead. After Shawn Hillas closed the gap to 32-24 with a three-pointer, Greg Goode answered back with his own three and, after Gross scored inside, the Cougars had their biggest lead at 37-24 with 1:30 left in the third.

But Summit wouldn't go away, and scored five straight points to once again whittle the deficit to eight points two minutes into the final quarter. Cranford put it away by scoring eight straight points – layups by Gross, Green and Pace and a six-foot bank along the baseline by Gross.

"Gross and Green are very talented kids," Huber said. "They feed off each other. People have been trying to take them away, but they do a very good job of letting the game come to them.

"We rebounded very well and did everything we needed to do tonight."

Cranford had six players score five or more points. After Gross and Green, Pace, Goode and Sean Trotter each scored six. Grier had five. Gross had six rebounds and Trotter four, though the Cougars narrowly lost the rebound battle 27-25.

Of Summit's 19 turnovers, 15 came off Cougar steals. Green and Grier recorded four each, while Pace had three and Goode and Trotter two each. Grier also had three assists and Trotter two.

Cranford turned it over 14 times and made 6 of 12 free throws.

The Cougars travel to Union Catholic for a 7 p.m. tip on Tuesday.