Christian Brothers Academy Zeroing In On Class A North Basketball Title

Photo above: Senior center Pat Andree waits for opening game tipoff

MARLBORO – CBA remained undefeated in Class A North play after the Colts took care of divisional foe Marlboro, 66-44, Tuesday at the Mustangs home gym.

With the win, the Colts (14-2, 9-0) remained two games up on Freehold Township (11-5, 7-2) with one game left against the Patriots on February 13. Both teams have five divisional games remaining on their schedule. CBA is in search of their third straight Class A North title, all under head coach Goeff Billet, who is now in his ninth season on the bench for the Colts.

“It was a good game for us,” Billet said. “This was one of our tougher road games in A North. At our place a couple of weeks ago it was a very close game against them but we ended up pulling it out. We got off to a good start, had a little hiccup to start the third quarter, but straightened ourselves out pretty quickly and led wire-to-wire to beat a pretty good team, pretty comfortable.”

CBA jumped out to a 10-0 lead to start the game and was never really threatened from that point on. The first quarter ended with the Colts up 20-7 as senior forward Jack McGuire set the tone of the game finishing the quarter with eight points.

The 6-foot-7 McGuire continued his assault on Marlboro in the second quarter going three-for-three from the field for six points while dominating in the paint at both ends of the floor. He hauled down five rebounds and blocked two shots in the quarter giving him 14 points, five boards, three blocks and one assist in the half as the Colts pulled out to a 33-19 halftime lead.

“McGuire was very energetic today; he was all over the place,” said senior center Pat Andree. “He’s taken a bigger role this season and has done well. Coach said this was his best game of the year. He has a great attitude, playing great and hopefully he can keep that up.”

Andree, who became CBA’s all-time leading scorer last week passing 1975 graduate Bob Roma for first place on the Colts all-time scoring list, chipped in with 11 first-half points while shooting an atypical 3-for-12 from the field including going 0-for-5 from the three-point arch. He added four rebounds, two blocks and a steal in the half while senior guard Jack Boyan totaled six points before intermission.

Marlboro was playing without senior center Matt Dean, who injured his left knee Thursday against Middletown South and is out indefinitely pending the results of an MRI done on Monday. The Mustangs sorely missed the 6-foot-8, 240-pound Dean’s presence in the key as McGuire, Andree and sophomore forward Sam Houston took advantage of his absence. Six-foot-6 Mustang freshman forward Dylan Kaufman had his moments showing good strength and positioning underneath at times, but the Colts inside depth was just to much for the undersized Mustangs to handle.

“They’re a different team without him (Dean),” Billet said. “Anytime you lose a 6-7, 6-8 kid who’s averaging 13 points and eight rebounds a game it’s hard to replace at the High School level. So we knew they were going to be a little short and we really wanted to get to the rim on them and we did a phenomenal job driving the ball to the basket.”

The Mustangs went on a 7-0 run to begin the second half to pull to with seven, 33-26, but CBA answered by finishing the third quarter on a 15-3 run to take a 50-31 lead after three quarters. Andree hit his only three-pointer of the game to get the run rolling and senior guard Nick Mugavero finished it with two straight hoops.

“We’re a group of seniors out there, it’s happened before and we know how to deal with it,” Andree said in reference to Marlboro’s fast third-quarter start. “We had to weather that storm and once we got done with that we were good the rest of the way.”

Senior guard P.J. Ringel scored eight straight points for the Mustangs in the third but the Colts kept pace as Houston and Andree controlled the paint and kept the Colts running in the transition with exceptional fast-break outlet passing. Houston had three blocks, three boards and a steal in the fourth while Andree – who began the quarter completing a three-point play - grabbed four rebounds and blocked a shot in the fourth as the Colts outscored the Mustangs 16-13 to finish off a well-played 66-44 victory.

“We thought we could get up-and-down a little bit on them,” said Billet. “They were starting a freshman big kid but are big guys Pat and Jack are pretty athletic so we wanted to get up-and-down the floor and get some transition baskets.”

McGuire finished with 20 points, eight boards and three blocked shots while Andree added 19 points, eight rebounds, four blocks and six assists. Boyan and Mugavero each added eight points and Houston finished with seven points, seven boards, three blocks and one steal.

“Sam (Houston) rebounded very well,” Billet said. “Again, we knew they were going to be a little smaller so we felt he could get around the basket, get some drives to the basket and help us out on offensive and defensive boards; he’s been doing that all year for us, even against bigger teams.”

Ringel had 13 of his team-high 16 points in the second half while Kaufman finished with nine points and seven rebounds – six of those in the first half. Daniel Weiss and Mike Jastrzebski each added six points.

The Colts – ranked No.1 in the Shore and 11th in the state - will battle division opponent Middletown North on Friday before heading to Atlantic City for a Saturday game against sixth-ranked and undefeated St. Augustine (14-0) in the Battle by the Bay. The game will be a rematch of last season’s Non-Public South A final in which CBA upset the No.1 seeded Hermits 83-77.

“We’ve played seven showcase games this year and we’re five-and-two,” Billet said. “We’re playing some of the top teams in the state and we’ve done very well and we’ve got one more left. We beat them (St. Augustine) in the A South final last year so going down to Atlantic City it’s going to be a tough match-up. But it’s going to be fun, it will be a packed house and we’ll be playing one of the top teams in the state.”

“We’re going to handle Middletown North first,” Andree said. “We don’t want to have one of those games where we look past them. We can’t wait to play St. Augustine again though, we know we’re going to take their best shots, we know they’re not happy about last year but we match up pretty well with them. I think if we come out and play with the energy we played with tonight we’ll have a good chance.”

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