Mendham Middle School Ballers Repeat Champions

The Mendham Township Middle School girls and boys basketball teams both won the Morris County Middle School Championship title for the second consecutive season this year and were honored at last week's board of education meeting.

"Hopefully they'll have a third, I think they consider three a dynasty, right?" Principal P.J. Ciccone joked.

The girls were honored first. As the team received its commemorative plaque, each member wanted to give thanks to family members.

Boys coach Jason Moynihan then delivered an emotional speech about the character of his team.

"Thank you for having us today," Moynihan said. "I'm the very proud coach of this amazing group of young men. I can talk about them for hours but I'll try to capture the essence of their season and be as brief as possible. Drill after drill, practice after practice, day after day, week after week these young men had a consistency of effort and focus that I would put against any team anywhere that I've ever coached or ever seen. They are a special group that understands what it means to compete without compromise. Where the emotional satisfactions of successes and the emotional uncertainty of failures do not matter to them; they are at the point where they don't have to think about results and are able to leave every ounce of themselves on the court for their teammates.

Moynihan said there was no one star on his roster. 

"The star of our team was the team. That is the ultimate goal for me as their teacher; it is very rare, but when it happens you have something special. To me, winning games, awards and tournaments is just a byproduct of that process," Moynihan said. "Competing without compromise is the ultimate achievement; thank you for recognizing them tonight, they deserve it but they certainly don't expect it."

Ciccone had praise for the coach himself.

"When he came to the team he brought a certain level of pride and work ethic to the team," Moynihan said. "Thank you very much for doing that for the boys, they certainly have been served extremely well for the past two years."

Ciccone also had kind words for girls coach Katherine Seals who was unable to attend the meeting.

"To be able to win a championship as a new coach is incredible," Ciccone said.

Ciccone also said that he "likes all the banners in the gym but it really excites me that you guys get the opportunity to work hard and together as a team to achieve things. Hopefully this sets you on a path for future success in everything you do."