Central's Shooting Too Good for Lancers

Going into Tuesday night's game against Newark Central, the Lancers knew they would have to play their best game of the season.  Central is one of the best teams in the county.

What the team did not know, though, would be that the Blue Devils would come out and hit beyond the three-point line.

Newark Central hit seven three-pointers in the first half and nine for the game. Livingston lost 76-51 despite 19 points from junior forward Sam White. Blue Devils Patrick Cole was especially deadly beyond the three-point arc with four for the game, a dozen out of his 19 points.

"The (three-point) shots were not uncontested. They just hit them," said Livingston junior captain Matt Fung.

Fung pretty much summed it up for all of the Lancers when he noted that "it was a long game."

Fung was limited to five points in the game while Livingston sophomore guard Sam Abam contributed eight points for the Lancers.

The Lancers game plan, at the start, was to keep Newark Central from getting easy baskets inside and limit Central's Kameen McPleasant from getting buckets in the middle.

But that game plan went out the window when Newark Central started hitting from the outside. McPleasant led the Blue Devils with 19 points.

 The loss hits even harder for the Lancers, whose record drops to 6-9 for the season with the state playoff cutoff deadline on Saturday. Livingston has only one left before then, against Newark Academy on Thursday.  

Schools that have a .500 record or higher automatically qualify for the tournament.

But for the first time this school year, the New Jersey State Interscholastic Athletic Association (NJSIAA) is allowing under .500 teams in the state playoffs. The only caveat is that the maximum size of each section can be 16. There are 22 teams in Group 4 North 1, so if 16 teams have a .500 or better record than the state does not pick any under .500 schools for the tournament. Last season, 13 teams were .500 or better in the Group 4 North 1.

There was some good news for the team in the game against Central, though.

Despite the Blue Devils hitting shots at the perimeter, Livingston was able to trim what was a 20-point Blue Devils in the third quarter.  White hit a three pointer to cut the Blue Devils lead to 51-40 with a little more than a minute in the third quarter.

"We were getting close, but when they needed a basket, they would go down and get it," said Fung.

 After the White three pointer, the Blue Devils would go on a 12-4 run and ballooned the Lancers deficit to 19 points, 63-44, with a little more than six minutes remaining in the game.