By DAVE O’SULLIVAN
Staff Writer
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PISCATAWAY — The last time the Ocean City High boys basketball program won a state championship, not many American households had color television. Current head coach John Bruno has been patrolling in front of the bench since the late 1980s, and he had never guided the Red Raiders to a championship game appearance in his storied career.
To say it’s been a long time since Ocean City has been at the top of the New Jersey basketball mountain is an understatement.
But now, Bruno has the crowning achievement of his illustrious career in hand, as Ocean City rallied to beat Colonia, 55-46, on Sunday afternoon at Jersey Mike’s Arena on the campus of Rutgers University. The undersized and often overlooked Red Raiders played their brand of basketball, which featured relentless half-court defense, timely 3-pointers and a dizzying amount of back-door cuts to the basket that would have old-school basketball fans giddy with delight.
The Raiders won it all in 1955 and 1964, but hadn’t made a state championship game since 1972. But they played a lot like those teams of a bygone era, sharing the ball, hustling all over the court and forcing huge turnovers when they needed to most, late in the fourth quarter. A couple of steals turned into foul shots and a bucket down low, and a game that was tied at 46 saw Ocean City sprint ahead, 53-46, with a little more than a minute to go. Ocean City outscored Colonia 9-0 after the Patriots tied the game with 3:18 to go.
“We nowhere expected to be in the state championship when the season started, but as each game went by, they just believed in themselves. And one of the key components of this team was their composure. They never seemed to get rattled,” Bruno said. “Today, they could have crumbled a couple of times and I thought they kept their cool. Dean Lappin, to me — there’s a reason why he’s going to be a marine, because he’s a leader. Tighe Olek, Josh Lenko shooting the ball, and he also rebounded the ball in the second half. I thought we did a much better job of limiting their putbacks. In the first half they had too many easy putbacks. We played good defense but they got too many easy baskets.”
“It’s just pure excitement, going out and playing with these boys ever since grade school. It’s probably the greatest moment of my entire life right now. The hard work we put in, the togetherness we had — we’re not the flashiest basketball team in the world. I don’t think anybody, except maybe Josh, is going to play at the next level, so this is it for us,” said senior Tighe Olek, who scored seven points and added five rebounds and five assists. “It was just patience, getting our open shots. We only had four (3-pointers) the whole game, so it was just grind the other team down, patience and get the open look.
“We’ve been building toward this all year and the key thing here was to play unselfish basketball. We’re not going to break a team off the dribble, so it’s just getting open looks, setting screens for each other. That makes basketball easy and fun.”
“To turn the tide, we just hustled. I know I missed a few shots, but took pride in my defense and got a few turnovers,” said fellow senior Chris Pontari, who had just 14 career points coming into this season but became one of the most valuable sixth men in South Jersey this winter. “We got a few buckets, and we were up (for good). We’re all brothers, we’re all family. We all played JV together, the freshman team, and when we got to the varsity level we were able to connect the dots.”
The teams battled back and forth all game long, but Ocean City (26-6, 9-3 Cape-Atlantic League American) got a huge boost when Josh Lenko drilled a 3-pointer to start the fourth quarter. That gave the Red Raiders a 41-39 lead, and moments later he hit another to push the lead to 44-39. Colonia (21-11, 5-3 GMC Red American) fought back to tie the game, 46-46, but a steal and layup by Dean Lappin gave the Red Raiders the lead for good and sparked that 9-0 run that ended the game.
Ocean City had 17 assists on 19 made baskets and outrebounded the Patriots 25-17 despite being undersized in the front court — a microcosm of their entire season. The Raiders got 24 points from Lenko and 15 points and 10 rebounds from Luke Tjoumakaris, and the four other players did everything they could to chip in when and wherever possible.
“That’s this team. That describes this team in a nutshell,” Bruno said. “Seventeen (assists) is quite a bit, but that tells me that when you share the ball you have a happy team. And when you have a happy team, you have a chance to win. This team has done that all year long, and we stress it. It’s always been something we hope teams realize that it’s about the team, not you as an individual. It’s about all of us and everybody has their moment.”
“This is what we do. We have a brotherhood here. We go to practice every day and we’re always focused. We knew,” Pontari added. “We all came together at a young age and played together and we were all looking forward to this year. I’m sad that it’s over, but this is the best way to go out. This is amazing. I’m still trying to take it all in. I couldn’t go to bed last night. I was up, just thinking about this game.”
Bruno has done hundreds of post-game interviews during his nearly four-decade career, but even he was at a loss for words a little bit after finally winning the big game.
“I think this is one of those, it doesn’t hit you — maybe on the bus ride home? I’ll be saying, ‘wait a minute. What did we just do?’ You’re caught up in all the emotions,” he said. “For me, though, I’ve done this for so long — it’s those kids over there and the fun that they had leading up to this. They just love being together with each other. I’ll probably think about it on the way home. I always thought this was the other guy; this was Haddonfield, this was Shawnee, this is Atlantic City. I don’t really know how you’re supposed to feel. But I know I’m happy for (my players). Part of my heart is going to them, that’s why my personal excitement is just relief. For them, it’s something they’ll live with for the rest of their lives.”
