By BRIAN TORTELLA
Correspondent
On X @tortreports
VOORHEES — Chris Abreu said he was feeling “horrible” when he woke up this morning.
Less than 12 hours later, the Cherry Hill East High junior point guard scored a game-high 27 points to lead the Cougars to a huge 72-58 divisional victory over Eastern in Olympic-American action.
“I woke up this morning feeling horrible. I’m sick, so it was a hard game,” Abreu said. “I didn’t know if I had it in me right now, especially today, I was really sick.
“That was basically our conference. We knew it was going to be a tough game coming in, they beat Lenape. If we lost that, we probably would’ve been second place in the conference, so it was a huge win for us.”
Cherry Hill East improved to 16-0 and is the last remaining undefeated team in South Jersey. As if the mark wasn’t already impressive enough, it was the fourth straight win for the Cougars without sophomore star Jamieson Young, who suffered a season-ending injury in a non-league contest against St. Rose on Jan. 17.
Young was averaging a team-leading 21.8 points per game before fracturing his right ankle. In his absence, the Cougars have filled the starting spot with Ryan Olson, a senior who up until this point hasn’t seen much varsity time in his career.
“We just had to have other guys step up and make plays for us. We needed other guys to fill the role, so we replaced them with Ryan Olson, and Aiden Sarpong and Noah Johnson come off the bench and help us,” said Cherry Hill East coach Dave Allen. “(Eastern) is one of the best teams in South Jersey. They’re a great team and Kevin Crawford is a great coach and he’s doing a great job this year with his team.”
Abreu’s scoring output has surged in the four games since Young’s departure. He’s now averaging 23.8 points per game during that span, dropping a career-high 28 in an 86-40 triumph over Rancocas Valley on Wednesday.
“What can I say? He just has to do everything,” Allen said of Abreu. “He has to (defend) the team’s best player, he has to score now because Jamieson is out. He could score before, but Jamieson was our leading scorer. He has to set everyone up and run the offense. He’s done a great job (of stepping up).”
According to Allen, Chris Delgado is another player who will need to level-up his game if the Cougars want to remain perfect.
So far, he’s done just that.
A four-year varsity starter and recent 1,000-point scorer, Delgado knocked down four 3-pointers en route to an 18-point performance. The senior has been highly efficient from long-range as of late, recording four three-balls in three of the four games since Young went down.
“We all knew that we had to take a step up. We lost 22 points a game, so we all have to find other ways of scoring and be confident in our abilities,” Delgado said. “I don’t feel pressure. I feel like I have to be confident. I’ve been here for four years, I know the system. The coaches trust me and my teammates trust me. We needed this win, it was probably our biggest win of the year. We have to keep building from that.”
Added Abreu: “Right now, we’re more focused when he (Young) is out. Our new starter, Ryan Olson, has helped us a lot with the threes, he’s a really good shooter. We have to stack up the points for Jamieson.”
The Cougars all but sealed the highly competitive Olympic Conference’s American Division with the triumph. They’re currently 6-0 against divisional opponents, sweeping Eastern and Rancocas Valley and defeating Lenape and Cherokee each once. Lenape is second in the standings with an 11-5 overall record and a 3-2 divisional mark.
Eastern fell to 15-3 with the loss, with its three setbacks coming against Cherry Hill East and Lenape.
“We want to win, we don’t want to lose a game,” Abreu said. “We want to get back to the sectional final and win it. It hasn’t been done in a decade, so we’re trying to get back there.”
Added Allen: “I’m just trying to get to practice tomorrow and trying to win tomorrow. We have tough games this weekend. We have a very tough game on Saturday against Burlington Township, so we’re going to try to be successful against them.”
WHAT’S NEXT: Cherry Hill East travels to Rancocas Valley and the Jeff Coney Classic on Saturday to take on Burlington Township at 2:30 p.m. Eastern takes on Overbrook on Saturday at the Jeff Coney Classic at 4 p.m.
